CrowdWorthy
The Problem
CrowdWorthy is a consumer products startup. They set out with a goal to change how e-commerce is done by putting the focus back on the consumer and making it easy to shop online for the first time. Owing to its founder's great vision, they were successful in getting interest in the company with many prominent figures and executives joining their management team and board of advisors.
However, after getting into development, the company started to fall apart as they started to encounter many problems. These problems ranged in area from business to operations to technology.
The Solution
whiteMAKO was called in to make the idea, technology, and company work again.
Step 1: Creating a Winning Message
Services: Strategic Consulting, Branding
The company's vision had everything necessary for it to be a big hit, but like all early startups, suffered simply from a lack of focus and refinement. Because of this, it was hard to communicate the vision so people could understand it quickly.
whiteMAKO sat down with the founders to turn their vision into a winning idea and a strong brand. First, we asked them to give us an unfiltered, incoherent dialog of everything they wanted their company to be. From there, we were able to understand the direction they wanted to go and organize the aspects of their vision into tangible goals. Having these goals helped to create a simple structure that fit everything together naturally. After finding that structure, it was simple to come up the company's universal transmittable message. This message has been met with great success after use with investors, partners, and customers alike.
The company's unfocused vision made it difficult to determine how best to move forward among all their efforts, wasting a lot of time and money. After creating this message, we were able to guide them with these decisions. We knew what things they should invest in because of how they fit into the established structure and whether they made progress toward a goal or were simply a distraction.
Milestones
- Refined vision into transmittable message that has boosted the company's brand greatly
- New message allowed us to identify unnecessary efforts within the company, saving both time and money
Step 2: Saving the Technology
Services: Strategic Consulting, Web Development Management
Understanding the Vision
The vision for the website was a very sophisticated one. Instead of creating another store like so many others, CrowdWorthy was developing a next-generation e-commerce system with many complex interacting components. Nothing like this had ever been done before. It was both technologically challenging to create and organizationally demanding to pull off.
Finding the Problem
Before whiteMAKO was called in, roughly 1400 hours of man hours and $35,000 went into the developing site, but there was not much to show and things were starting to look grim. Unfortunately, all this time only served to highlight a communication problem within the company. The management team's ideas were simply not being translated into development the way they wanted.
A common problem working with development teams, the management team was not able to communicate their requirements at a level technical enough for the development team to fully understand. This is because most development teams are good at simple development, but not at taking into account business objectives, which is critical for success. So you end up with a management team giving orders that a development team that can't quite understand. Then the two sides start going in circles trying to explain the problems they see and the only thing you get is lost time.
Implementing the Answer
There was clearly an organizational gap that needed to be filled and whiteMAKO did just that. whiteMAKO came on board as the web development management team, directing and monitoring development. We met with the management team to identify the company's objectives and timelines. We then created a long-term technology strategy that took these objectives into account. We communicated this plan to the development team at a level technical enough for them to clearly understand what they were supposed to do. In addition, we verified the development team's work to make sure it was completed.
Since errors often went unchecked during development, we instituted new development protocols to maintain a consistent level of quality assurance. This made the process more transparent for the management team and less chaotic for the development team. The new protocols were happily received and very successful. In as little as 100 hours, we took the currently unusable code base that took 1400 hours to develop and turned it into a workable base for future expansions, cutting down the cost to launch by over 80%.
Milestones
- Created technology strategy that took into account business objectives to ensure a continuous delivery of value
- Identified missing link in company's organizational structure that solved all their problems
- Created development protocol that made development more transparent for management team and easier for development team, boosting morale and speeding up the process
- Turned unusable code base from 1400 hours of development and $35,000 of investments into something workable in 100 hours and with only $2,500
- Cut down launch costs by over 80%
Step 3: Saving the Company
Services: Strategic Consulting, Commercialization
With the idea and technology in place, it was time to focus on the company.
The missing development role was a sign that the company needed to grow, but they wanted to make sure they were doing it right without adding overhead. With a deep understanding of their internal processes, we were able to come up with a better organizational structure for the company. This structure was designed to make the company more effective at what they already did and at the same time, more scalable so they could do multiple things at once without sacrificing anything. This structure would prove to outperform typically larger early setups and get the company going at a much lower cost.
The last part of the project involved getting the company launched and that required additional funding. Working with the management team, we were able to create a business plan and presentation that caught investors' attention. With some coaching, the team was able to go to investors with full knowledge of what results they wanted, minimizing the amount of time it took to secure investments.
Milestones
- Created efficient organizational structure for the company that saved both time and money while boosting their personnel capabilities
- Developed the company's current commercialization package
