How Do You Help a Small Startup Turn Their Brilliant Idea into a Powerful Online Tool That Solves the Problems of Two Different Target Groups?
Sport Compass is a remote-working company based in Copenhagen, Denmark, that promises to bridge the offline world of bars and the online world of sports fans.
The two problems that the service plans to address are complementary. First, sports fans need a manner in which they can find a bar in their area, that suits their interests, and that is broadcasting their desired match. Second, venue owners are struggling to attract customers due to their lack of technological know-how and modern marketing expertise.
Sport Compass aims to solve these problems through an all-in-one platform that facilitates event management for venues and event discovery for customers.
Setting the Stage for a Successful Service Through Comprehensive Research and Continuous Improvement
When I first joined Sport Compass, they had started building an online community through social media, as well as an initial version of the user side of their platform. The company initiated a collaboration with two bars, promoting their events on its website, but this was done manually by employees. They had a rough idea of the direction in which they wanted the company to progress, but nowhere near the actual products.
At this early stage, uncertainty dominates the business environment. Having to choose between too many diverging paths leads to aimlessness and hinders the progression of any company. Therefore, a crucial step of commencing work was defining what we knew we wanted the company to be, or at least, what we knew we didn't want it to be.
We concluded that, at the very least, we wanted to help our target groups by solving the two main problems we previously discussed. We didn't want to be just another fixture or social media platform, but one that combines these functionalities seamlessly and integrates well with the current workflow of our users and clients. We would achieve this by building our website with those two main goals in mind - helping users find a venue and helping owners gain more customers - while executing research to determine what other difficulties our audience is facing and how we can address them.
We also decided which set of tools we would be using internally to bring our idea to reality - Google Drive for documents and file sharing, Asana for project management, Slack for communication, Figma for design and prototyping, and Git for development.
Going from a mere idea to a functional tool is never easy, especially when you lack knowledge concerning the specific desires of your target groups . This was the variable we set out to clarify next, as we were developing our platform and driving the project forward.
Through our collaboration with the two bars, we were able to participate in a wide number of events and assess how the bar employees and users were interacting with our website. By regularly observing and interviewing our target groups, we were able to make incremental improvements to the customer-facing side of the platform, enhancing the overall user experience .
In the meantime, we used Figma to create an initial design of the bar panel. A complex tool like this makes it easy for inexperienced users to get lost unless it offers intuitive interactions and a clear separation between different sections.
The panel is split up into four parts: Setting (for various preferences), Dashboard (for an overview of your current and future events), Events (for searching, scheduling and publishing events) and Insights (for a way to view and analyze statistical data regarding your past events).
We chose to focus on the Events section, which includes the essential functions of the bar panel. We defined a user flow which included searching for matches, adding them to a schedule, creating a custom event, and publishing everything to the bar's website and social media. After designing the screens and elements required for this flow, we built an interactive prototype and organized meetings with our two collaborators , taking them through the process described.
Through observation, task analysis and surveys, we could gauge the bar owners' opinions of the prototype, and determine what changes the panel would require, to adequately serve their needs. Furthermore, we uncovered other aspects of their workflow, which we could integrate into the bar panel, making their jobs easier and improving their experience. For example, they usually manually fill in and print out an excel spreadsheet with the schedule for next week and channel instructions for the employees, a process which could be easily automated.
Equipped with a better awareness of our users' needs, we set out to reconstruct the prototype and integrate the improvements we established. However, we soon realized that the increasing complexity of our platform, combined with its ever-changing nature required us to be more mindful of the systems we put in place when designing the tool. Therefore, to solve this issue and ensure consistency, we dedicated time to creating a design system, rebuilding our prototype in Figma using components. I defined and documented the first brand guidelines. I also redesigned the logo to ensure it reflects our brand and the modern, forward-thinking nature of the company.
With design and development in full motion, we undertook another objective of our business - raising awareness about our upcoming platform . Most of our users were discovering Sport Compass through social media or by word-of-mouth because the website merely served scheduled matches. We designed and developed a landing page that still provides this functionality while also offering an introduction to the service, its unique selling propositions and the team behind it.
At the same time, we wanted to spread the word to pub owners and validate our idea by gathering letters of intent from several bars in the Copenhagen area. We decided this would be an ideal opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of our potential clients and their pain points.
We organized interviews with twelve venue managers, which revolved around a set of questions that ranged from defining their establishment and priorities to describing their current means and processes. The interviews were followed by a quick presentation of the new prototype , taking them through the process of searching for some games, organizing a custom event, adding everything to their schedule and publishing this schedule to Sport Compass and social media platforms. The meetings were wrapped up by asking the managers a simple question of whether or not they would use a tool like that.
The research uncovered several additional unexpected problems. The managers are spending a considerable amount of their working time using multiple outdated tools to gather game programs and build their schedule. The way they were struggling to collect various sports fixtures from different sources or even using hand-written agendas as their primary means of keeping track of reservations left us astonished as well as inspired with numerous ways that we could contribute .
Improved Online Presence, Service Validation and Closer Than Ever to Achieving Its Purpose
All but one of the pubs we approached signed letters of intent , proving that the service is indeed on the right tracks.
With the beta version of the bar panel recently released, it might seem that the long journey is coming to an end. However, being aware of the additional functionality we intend to add to the panel and the ongoing surveys and testing that will undoubtedly reveal new information, we know this is just the beginning - there is still much work to be done.
Nevertheless, by setting the right systems in place and through comprehensive research, Sport Compass has evolved from a community with an idea into a promising company providing real value , being closer than ever to a fully-functioning service.
Starting a company can be daunting and providing real value can be difficult. But it doesn't have to be that way. Get in touch to find how I can help you turn your business idea into reality.
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