How I came up with my startup idea.
PrepVENT idea
One night, I was surfing through YouTube, and I stumbled upon a Ted talk video. The video was about some factors that make a successful startup [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNpx7gpSqbY]. According to the video, Timing was one of these factors. I was really troubled about this information because it confirmed my suspicion about a bad decision I had made 2 months earlier. Two months earlier, covid started and I decided to work on an app called PrepVENT Manager from a suite of event apps called PrepVENT.
Pivot
I stopped working on the PrepVENT idea because the timing was wrong. I didn’t know what to do next. After a week of searching for new ideas, it dawned on me that a feature of the PrepVENT manager app could use for other management apps. Events have much chaos, and the app helps to navigate and align those chaoses. I knew project and business management were just as chaotic as event management. So, I decided to build a work management app but I didn’t know how to go about it.
MEV interview
I journeyed back home to interview my dad and some of my friends that run a startup. My friend’s startup is called MEV [https://mevapp.com/]. They are a team of 5, 2 of them are remote workers while the remaining 3 work and live together. I interviewed 3 of them: Mathew, the tech guy and C.E.O.; Victor, the business manager; and Ibrahim, the evangelist who works remotely. During my interview, I asked about the problems they had with work management. They said different things, but they had 2 problems in common: communication and information dissemination.
Hypothesis and validation
I knew what the problem was, and I had an idea of the solution. But I wanted to know how big companies solve these problems. So, I went to my dad who is a HOD in his workplace. He explained how they operate, the chain of command, communication e.t.c. With all this information, I made a hypothesis, and I needed to validate it. So, I called my buddy, Mathew, and asked him how his team likes to use their current collaboration software. Based on his explanation and my interview, I was able to conclude that they needed a software that allows them to communicate and collaborate based on their roles in their startup.
Implementation
I wanted something that is customizable and solves business challenges. So, I came up with widgets. They behave like lego bricks that can be combined with other bricks in different ways to make a toy (in my case a collaboration tool). With the app, you can customize collaboration tools for different roles in an organization based on their responsibilities with widgets.
The end product
At this point, I knew how widgets work but I didn’t know the type of widgets to build. So, I came up with 15 different widgets and I started eliminating them based on my interview responses and my observations. Eventually, I settled for 5 widgets, and here are my reasons for choosing them.
-Project widget: Mathew wanted to know when other members are done with their tasks. So, I built a board that manages tasks from the idea phase [backlog stage], to when tasks are assigned[todo stage], to when tasks are worked on by the assignees [in-progress stage], and lastly when tasks are completed [done stage]. I also added a section to monitor the progress of tasks in multiple projects without leaving the current project he is working on.
-Task widget: Victor wanted to know the tasks that are assigned to him and when he has to do them. So, I built a mini-board that manages the tasks assigned to a user from the todo stage to the in-progress stage and the done stage. To fulfill Victor’s request, I added a feature that allows him to filter his to-do tasks by their priorities and generate a timeline based on his tasks schedules and deadlines. Ibrahim and Mathew also complained about not knowing when other members have made some changes to a task. To solve this, I added a section that notifies them of changes done to their assigned tasks by their collaborators in realtime.
-Announcement widgets: this widget was made based on my observation. I noticed that they use social media apps to send their announcements. And I wanted all work-related announcements to be in the same place, so I made sure all sent messages are delivered to their dashboard and email addresses for easy access.
-Support widget: Victor’s room was always filled with documents and lists of things they needed. So, I created a widget where they could manage their needs in terms of suggestions and requests.
-Administration widget: I needed a widget to manage teams, their departments and customize their collaboration tools.
The end product is called Tietoon [https://bit.ly/2M4OMMP]. Please check it out and give me your feedback. Thank you for your time.
