TL;DR
My team worked with a client assigned to us by General Assembly, Loren Sklar. Over the course of two weeks, we worked to develop a Minimum Viable Product that would help aspiring entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities established entrepreneurs who have achieved high levels of success, giving them access to the right knowledge, people, and network that will help them reach their entrepreneurial aspirations. This concept was built on the premise that the knowledge and expertise needed to succeed is confined to the prominent tech scene of Silicon Valley.
THE MISSION
To give aspiring entrepreneurs with the help, guidance, and confidence & succeed in their business endeavors.
Build a product that will use a matching system to connect the two and offer support to help aspiring entrepreneurs emerge new businesses. We want to give them access to the right knowledge, people, and network that will allow them to achieve success.
THE CHALLENGE
Create a story-telling platform that will connect aspiring entrepreneurs with seasoned entrepreneurs, helping the aspiring ones emerge new business.
MY INVOLVEMENT
I had the pleasure of working with two of my colleagues, Madalyn Lee and Melanie Zachariades, taking on the role of UX designers.
Personal Win - user research, leveraging my network in San Francisco to gain insights directly from the source.
““I very much enjoyed with a well-trained team to take a problem and implement a fully thought out, well executed solution based on the needs of the user.” — Loren Sklar”
THE USERS of PLAN3000
To kick-off this design challenge, we created personas to illustrate the prospective users of Plan3000.
ASPIRING ENTREPRENEUR
ESTABLISHED ENTREPRENEUR
R E S E A R C H
Before diving directly into the design solution, we took the time to think holistically about what Plan3000, as a platform, was trying to accomplish, as well as how users would find value in the product.
What calls to action would encourage busy, established entrepreneurs, such as Greg, to engage with the platform?
Empathy map session with Loren from Plan3000.
We created an empathy map to decipher key research themes that would be used for our user interview questions.
Empathy map with converged research themes bolded.
We then conducted several successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley to gain insights of what their motivations were behind helping aspiring entrepreneurs succeed.
USER FINDINGS
Through extensive user research, we learnt that successful entrepreneurs want to help others reach their goals, however, their time is limited, amongst other things elicited on the right.
““If you build a diverse company, you get a more diverse viewpoint and that is a huge advantage.”
— Greg Isenberg, currently Islands, previously Founder @ 5by(acquired by StumbleUpon)”
“There is another motivation behind paying it forward, giving back, and feeling good, especially if its for people with high potential that you relate to.
— Seth Rosenberg, Entrepreneur, Previously Product @ Facebook
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“Mentorship is kind of like a parabola — there is a point where you hit the most prime, and value out of it and eventually it’s a law of diminishing returns. — Greg Isenberg, currently Islands, previously Founder @ 5by(acquired by StumbleUpon)”
After synthesizing our findings, we developed a problem statement & hypothesis to articulate what we wanted to solve.
HYPOTHESIS
We believe that by creating a platform that will match users(successful & aspiring entrepreneurs) based on shared interests and expertise, we will help aspiring entrepreneurs get the help they need to achieve their business goals and aspirations.
PROBLEM
In order for a successful entrepreneur, such as Greg, to dedicate time amidst his busy schedule to help aspiring entrepreneurs, he needs a way to get paired with those he is most bound to connect with.
IDEATION PROCESS
We explored several different user flows with low-fidelity wireframes, tested, and re-iterated ten times over until we were comfortable with the solution.
