The impact of COVID-19 has caused a global shift in the way that we work, and for some, the change to working from home may not be temporary. We identified that many people struggle with adjusting to remote work, as their productivity and mental health were lowered.
Link Up provides employees with an environment that facilitates collaboration and social community with their coworkers. Our customers are provided with an experience that more closely reflects their in-office experience from the safety of their homes while helping them maintain their productivity in their new environment.
In the course of the past few months, digital advertising platforms have gained more traction. Therefore, we will market our product through trusted sites such as LinkedIn, Google, and Handshake. Furthermore, we will integrate with Slack and MeetUp as a way to set-up meetings and organize virtual events to strengthen relationships.
Abbi Leul (Project Manager, Sophomore Engineering Design & Entrepreneurship @ RHIT) (Project Manager, Sophomore Engineering Design & Entrepreneurship @ RHIT) Abbi organized documents, cadence, and resource distribution by communicating across both squads. Abbi conducted research to ensure the product to market fit, implemented the Business Model, and advised user experience designs of the product. Abbi served as a leader in creating the final video including presenting the product demo and all research conducted throughout the five weeks.
Aaron Solesky (Product Team, Senior Cybercrime, and Security @ ISU) Aaron assisted both the go squad and pro squad with tasks such as the planning and ideation stages of design, research and analysis for a business environment map, creating visual aids for user experience design, and gathering feedback from potential customers.
Elizabeth Musto (Go Squad, Junior Marketing, and Business Analytics @ IU Bloomington) Elle worked with the GO squad to help design a marketing plan for the product Link Up. Conducted market research to create a business canvas model, revenue model, and implementation of the product plan. Elle created the final video including walking viewers through a demonstration of the software and sharing the market research conducted throughout the five-week period.
Kade Dentel (Product Squad, Senior Computer Science @ BSU) Kade developed the web application including the client, application server, and database structure. He also led user testing with help from both the ProSquad and GoSquad. Kade served as a vital member of the team by helping to create the final video and sharing his knowledge on software development so that the Go Squad could conduct a successful demonstration.
Yash Awtani (Go Squad, Senior Informatics, and Marketing @ Indiana University Bloomington) Yash aided in the development of the business plan. He also identified market competitors and planned market strategies for the launch of our product. Yash helped to create a detailed analysis as well.
Each member of our team spoke with friends and relatives to gather input on the kinds of problems that people were facing while working from home. We learned that some people working from home missed the social environment that came with working in an office setting. Employees also reported lower productivity and mental health while working from home and that they had difficulty maintaining regularity and transparency in communication with coworkers.
After brainstorming possible solutions, we used a creative matrix template to identify which of these prospective solutions would serve to best solve problems we had identified. For our customers, we decided to cater to new hires and employees who are not used to working remotely, because they would have the most difficulty adjusting to the workstyle that was required of them. We decided to focus on marketing to small companies because the number of employees a company has would allow them to take advantage of the benefits of our product, but a large company would most likely have existing solutions or tools that they would be reluctant to switch from. We decided on the direction for our project based on our own research as well as advice from our coaches.
For each week, our team determined what needed to be done, set milestones, and divided roles among our members. We maintained regular meetings and communication to ensure that the efforts of both squads were helping each other progress. The go squad conducted research, surveys, user testing, and interviews, and this information would help us determine our priorities and where to focus our efforts. This information helped the pro squad by providing direction to the development of the prototype deliverable. When a roadblock was reached in development, this gave the go squad more information to gather. This process allowed us to stay on track and modify our project as the need arose.
We shared our website with several users and conducted phone interviews to understand customer pains. After our first prototype, we received feedback through user-testing and iterated the process. Currently, we have one beta testing in progress.
- 25 unique account logins
- 30 landing page views
- 50 survey participants
- 15 user testers
- Round 1: 5 user testers
- Round 2: 10 user testers
- 1 beta tester
Link Up was developed using the following tools and frameworks:
- Flutter - We chose Flutter as our UI framework so that we develop quickly without sacrificing quality on either iOS or Android devices.
- Firebase Authentication - We chose Firebase because our developer has experience with using Firebase, and we believed using a familiar tool would allow us to deliver the best quality product. Firebase Authentication provides us with easy to use tools that help keep our customers’ data secure.
- Cloud Firestore - By using cloud storage for our database, we maximize the scalability and availability of data while minimizing the cost of server maintenance. All of the tools we chose that are offered by Google were selected because they are reliable and easy to integrate.
- Cloud Storage - Google Cloud Storage allows us to host images, such as for our users’ profile pictures.
With another 5 weeks, we would conduct another 5 rounds of user testing in order to identify ways in which we could flesh out the features of our web application, in order to improve the overall user experience. We would also conduct at least 3 more beta tests from small businesses in order to identify and fix bugs and possible security vulnerabilities in our application. We would introduce new features to our product to increase the company culture. These include:
- Gallery: employees can have a feed of photos that can be shared among coworkers.
- Appointments: employees can be able to reserve time slots with their coworkers by limiting the number of back and forth emails.
- Messaging Box: employees within the organization can use the same platform to share their daily activities while working from home.
We would conduct at least 30 additional interviews, 5 more rounds of market research, and 30 additional surveys to gain feedback on how to best approach scaling our product for a bigger market share. We would also have at least 3 ads for Link Up on both Google and LinkedIn.