Data-driven strategy building platform for business growth.
Overview
Decisions driven by data lead to strategic victories. An innovative software solution designed to revolutionize strategy development for businesses across various industries. We developed this project for a startup iTeams which is based out of Indianapolis.
Problem
The lack of a robust and all-encompassing set of features, tools, and resources that address the various needs and challenges faced by mid-stage startup CEOs. They want to effectively collaborate with their C-suite, managers, and other stakeholders while developing business strategies. This absence of necessary tools and resources for tracking company growth based on industry trends prevents CEOs from ensuring profitability and meeting customer needs.
How might we enable mid-stage startup CEOs to collaborate effectively, develop profitable strategies, and track industry-aligned growth?
Solution - Vioncraft
The product offers a holistic approach to help people develop data-driven sales strategies, track their progress, and achieve their business goals to mid-stage startups, providing tools for effective collaboration with their board of directors and managers along with resources for tracking company growth based on industry trends, facilitating profitability and customer-centric strategy development.
Design Impact
I tested our final prototype with 10 users (CEOs, Product Managers, and Founders) to get an insight into how much impact the design will have on their day-to-day life. Based on their feedback, this is what they feel about the product.
Collaboration among teams will be easy, to better align and coordinate on strategies and goals.
Benefit from real-time performance tracking, enabling them to monitor key metrics and make timely adjustments to their strategies.
Plan of action offers valuable guidance and support in achieving the goals effectively
Design Process
The design process I followed was: Research - Synthesize - ideate - Visualize - Test. The approach taken at each stage depended on the goal and what was required at that stage.
Research & Potential
Environmental analysis and interviews were conducted as research methods to gain a comprehensive understanding of the market landscape, competitor strategies, and customer needs.
This allowed us to identify gaps, challenges, and opportunities, which in turn informed the design of the product to effectively address the specific requirements of mid-stage startup CEOs.
There are 515,445 small businesses in Indiana in 2021 with annual revenues up to $10 million.
The Indiana SBDC helped secure $132.6 million in funding for 389 startups.
Indiana will receive $99M in federal funding for startups and small businesses in 2023
References: PWC, Apollo, Bnymellonwealth, Sifma
EMERGING PATTERNS
Key Trends
Video Conferencing
It helps to work and collaborate with team members who are working remotely.
Cloud Computing
It provide flexibility and scalability, making it easier for teams to access data from anywhere.
Virtual Whiteboards
Collaborative tools are becoming more popular for strategic planning for remote teams.
Artificial Intelligence
It can automate tasks, improve accuracy, and provide better insights into project performance
Target Audience
-
CEOs of mid-stage startups who are seeking to develop and refine their business strategies.
-
C-suite executives and managers are involved in strategic decision-making processes.
USER INTERVIEWS
Unveiling User Needs
Interviews were conducted as part of the research process to gather valuable insights directly from target users, such as CEOs of mid-stage startups and Executives. By conducting interviews, I could understand their pain points, challenges, and specific needs in strategy development and growth tracking.
Founder of Thinseed
As a new founder, its tough to access vital resources without industry connections. It hinders our growth and competitiveness
CEO of IM Design
There’s no platform for team to collaborate or process for feedback gathering
Founder of CollaboXD
Lacking the necessary tools and expertise can make strategy planning and progress tracking daunting, leading to missed opportunities
What was discovered...
AFFINITY MAPPING
Key insights after developing affinity mapping included aligning the sales strategy with the company's vision, fostering collaboration and gathering feedback from stakeholders, setting clear goals and tracking relevant KPIs, and creating actionable plans for effective execution. These insights helped us to work on key features.
Gaining the Competitive Edge
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
This gave us the following insights on the solutions we should work on:
-
The solution should have a place where team members can give feedback to know each other's opinions.
-
While brainstorming ideas, users need help with queries and doubts, which can be solved by a search feature.
-
Suggesting a plan of action to users will help boost their productivity and save their time
SWOT Analysis
-
One stop platform for planning and tracking.
-
Collaborative
-
Recommended roadmap
-
Predictive analysis
-
Learning curve
-
Lack of integration with strategy management tools.
-
Limited KPIs
-
Customization of template type
-
Integration with existing tools
-
Provide competitor's metrics tracking.
-
Competitors with a large user base adopting similar features.
-
User preferences and expectations can evolve over time
The Human Connection
USER PERSONA
Based on the literature survey, interviews, observations, and competitive analysis I found that users have the absence of necessary tools and resources for tracking company growth based on industry trends prevents CEOs from ensuring profitability and meeting customer needs. Therefore our persona is based on these outcomes.
IDEATING AND BRAINSTORMING
The Power of Collective Thinking
We performed 3 brainstorming sessions to find the solution to the problem. Individual, with the team and with someone apart from the team. This helped us collect ideas from all possible directions.
The task of narrowing down the ideas was divided into 2 parts:
-
First, we filtered out all the ideas based on economic and technical feasibility.
-
I presented the 3 concept flows to the client, then they gave feedback on the 3 ideas.
Based on the client’s feedback we iterated on the 3 concepts and came up with the final user flow.
Vioncraft User Flow
STORYBOARDING
Visualizing the Journey
Wireframes
Once the idea and layout was finalized, various variations of the idea were explored and the best ones were combined to form the final wireframes.
Design Evaluation
In order to get the design validated, I tested our functional prototype with our potential users. This enabled us to understand the perspective and feedback on the design. I asked some open-ended to get their feedback.
User Group
Jason Osburn
CEO
Design Unto Others
Geoff Zentz
Senior Director of Innovation
AgriNovus
Geoffrey Byers
Mentor
Newchip Accelerator
Feedback
Help them identify a metric to track and give “why” its good, to convince them.
Being intentional about your KPIs is more likely to generate results.
Manual entry will introduce errors, Use API that fetches data
It would be beneficial to see benchmarks and growth targets of other companies.
Key Screens
Onboarding
The onboarding process is designed to understand the user's company and its requirements. It also guides users about the features and their use cases.
Brainstorm with business strategies templates
Asking whether they currently possess a business strategy or are interested in formulating a new one, and based on their preference, present them with our comprehensive collection of business strategy templates to facilitate their planning process.
Get team’s opinion through voting & feedback on the huddle
During this collaborative session, each team member has the opportunity to cast their vote on the strategies displayed on the whiteboard. Additionally, they are encouraged to provide valuable feedback on the proposed strategies, fostering an inclusive and participatory decision-making environment.
Have any doubts? Ask AI
AI prompt enables real-time support and guidance, enhancing productivity and ensuring that everyone's concerns and queries are addressed promptly within the meeting setting.
Generate goals through strategic planning or customize it.
Providing users with a customized business strategy fosters a sense of ownership and engagement. The flexibility to customize goals further enhances the strategic planning process, enabling users to align their objectives with their unique vision and circumstances, ultimately driving greater impact and success for their business.
Get a plan of action to get the KPIs required to reach the goal.
Upon selecting their goal, users will be presented with a detailed action plan to attain the listed KPIs, which can be conveniently tracked through an intuitive dashboard. This streamlined process ensures clarity, focus, and effective monitoring of progress towards the desired objectives.
USER FEEDBACK
Feedback-Driven Iteration
It’s helpful to see that I can collaborate with my team and simultaneously get a roadmap.
It’s great that I can view the analysis of the strategy created in the form of the dashboard
The AI prompt feature can help me when I feel stuck while strategy planning.
NEXT STEPS
Future Scope
RECORD COMMENTS
To increase convenience for the people who couldn't attend the session, an option to record their comments as video/audio feedback, so that their opinions are shared with the rest of the group.
BENCHMARK METRICS
Benchmark the metrics with the help of industry standards and current data, so that the team will have a better estimate of where they stand across the industry and their competition.
IMPROVED AI
Leverage AI to generate prompts when building the strategy too, where the AI can answer prompts given by the group. This can help the team come up with stronger strategies.
LEARNINGS
Design Journey Reflections
-
Market Research: Performing a thorough environmental analysis, including competitor analysis and studying TAM, SAM, and SOM, provided valuable insights into the market landscape and helped inform product positioning and growth strategies.
-
Product Management: I learned market expectations, optimizing cost structures, aligning UX design with business goals, exploring revenue diversification, and ensuring a balance between value and development expenses.
-
Continuous Improvement: The project reinforced the significance of ongoing user research, testing, and iteration to gather feedback, improve the product, and align it with evolving user needs and market trends.
-
Collaboration and Feedback: The importance of effective collaboration and feedback-gathering processes was emphasized, highlighting the need for intuitive collaboration features in the product to enable seamless teamwork and idea generation.
What it’s like to work with me.
"It was great to work with Sachin on this project. His deep understanding of the industry and keen insights have been invaluable in shaping our strategies and driving meaningful results. Sachin's collaborative nature and open communication style have fostered a supportive environment where ideas flourish and everyone feels heard. "
- Manali Parab, MS HCI’24
