I partnered up with an NYC Cleaning Service company wanting to automate their services. They had a non-functioning MVP and a clear goal before reaching out.
The application that they were using previously failed to adapt to the increasingly complex demands of new features to support a growing cleaning service company.
It is essential to look into other players on the market and understand the products that we are going to compete. We have two main categories in the direct competition, software companies who offer the service and other traditional cleaning service companies.
In the end, we agreed on creating a Saas Product to spread the business goals offering a CRM tool for small-medium size cleaning service companies.
Metrics for the competitive analysis:
• User goals and product goals
• Areas and locations of service
• Customer retention & opinions
• Marketing investment
To test our ideas and hypothesis, we asked employees what their pain points were. Testing helped understand possible scenarios and to see which functions could be useful.
We also created profiles of the customers and their needs and goals, even though they are not using the application. Having a perspective of their goals is what is going to drive us to make a useful product.
Task flows helped us to think through the design before a feature is actually developed. It helped us to interject the user into the flow model of the application to determine if it matches conceptually with what we need.
As a small company, time and budget require fast turnaround and control. I worked closely with developers from different parts of the world to bring the platform to life. For that, we needed to manage time and constraints, Manage time and scope is harder than it sounds. We kept spreadsheets of flows and features and Trello boards of the needs and sprints of work.
List of screens from screen map:
• Specify features for each screen
• Assign priorities, Must-have (First release), Nice to have (Next Release)
• Fill in development time estimates