/Product Design /UX Research

MassChallenge: Alumni Experience Redesign

A curated resource for helping the startups achieve company goals

Type

Product UX Internship Project

What I did

UX Research, UX Design, Visual Design

My Role

Product Designer

Project Length

10 weeks

Tools

Figma, Balsamiq, Optimal Workshop Reframer

Team

Senior UX Designer, Product Manager

Project Overview

Challenge

Increase Alumni Engagement

MassChallenge has 8 startup accelerator programs across 4 countries and 6 cities with 2,344 startups over the past decade.

Yet, the alumni tend not to connect with the MassChallenge alumni network community after they graduated.

The goal is to improve alumni engagement so they might seek and receive help from one another and contribute to the global value of the network.

Solution

Startup Resource Matching System

A matching system providing curated resources, including potential investors, mentors, events, office hours, to get help in key areas necessary for company success.

Process

In 10 weeks, I collaborated with a senior designer, a product manager, and key stakeholders, including an alumni manager, 3 program managers, and a partnership manager, to research, design, prototype, and test the new system for improving alumni engagement.

Research

I started my internship by setting up 1:1 meetings with stakeholders and scheduled semi-structured interviews with users. My senior manager joined the first meeting, and the rest were conducted by me.

Key Research Questions

What is the alumni program? Who are alumni, what’s their behavior?
What resources and information does we already have on alumni project?

Research Methods

Stakeholders Interview

5 Managers for 3 Offices

Alumni Manager
Partnership Manager
Data Manager
Switzerland Program Manager
Israel Program Manager

Users Interview

3 Alumni from 3 Programs

I started recruiting the users by inviting the “Alumni-in-Residence”. They are typically last year's winner and stayed at the office as part of the prize, having a tighter bond with the staff.

Survey

Validate the Assumptions

I worked with the data team and dived into the pre- and post-program surveys to validate my assumptions on user behavior.

Comparative Analysis

I analyzed direct, indirect, and parallel competitors of the accelerator and the social platform to learn more about how others interacted with alumni.

MassChallenge v.s. Accelerator Programs

Mobilize v.s. Social Platforms

User Personas

Affinity Diagramming

Organize Chaos to Find True Problem

I used Reframer from Optimal Workshop to analyze participants' positive and negative feeling, thoughts, and their experience of alumni program, and finally summarized to 5 themes.

Framing the Problem

Based on the research, we arrived at 5 insights covered from needs to constrains.

☠️NO ALUMNI USE MOBILIZE

Mobilize is a social networking platform for alumni. Accelerate is the main dashboard with useful resources. However, many said they didn’t use the platforms after graduated.

“What is Mobilize? I was never told about that platform.”

💾INACCURATE INFORMATION

Incorrect and outdated information hindered the potential opportunity of connection

“There is a gap between the area what we (MassChallenge) called startups and what they call themselves ”

🎡ALUMNI WANT MORE EVENTS

Alumni expressed strong interests in more events. They value the benefits from activities held by or at MassChallenge

“ I would like to bring our own food or drink as long as MassChallenge provides the place for meetups.”

👋🏻BAD OFF-BOARDING EXPERIENCE

Most of the staff didn’t interact with alumni except for surveys

“I didn’t get any newsletter from MassChallenge after the finale.”

💰PARTNER & STARTUPS MATCHING

The primary income of the program comes from a good partnership, which means finding a good fit for a partner’s needs. There were too many manual tasks in the process to connect a partner with alumni.

Define

PRIORITIZATION

After sharing insights with the team, we used the impact effort matrix to reshape the design scope for my internship project and focus on one of the problems.

Re-define the problem

Providing Value to Improve Engagement

After a self brainstorming, I wanted to go back to the business goal of the company and align my project goal with it.

1. Company Mission:
“To make it as easy as possible for entrepreneurs to launch and grow new ventures.”

2. Business Goal:
The company income relies on providing good quality of startups to the partner companies.

3. Seeking Continued Value:
If startups can’t find the benefits, they won’t stay or spend the extra efforts to engage with us.
Startup’s experience after the program ties to the one during the program.

It’s not only about increasing the engagement. It’s about providing value.

Design Ideation

Finds Everything You Need to Launch New Products

Based on the research results, I decided to design a matching system that provides a curated resource for startups to get help in key areas necessary for company success.

BRAINSTORMING SESSION

After sharing insights with the team, a senior designer and I adopted the crazy 8’s method, we compared blueprints and discussed which way fits the best for current setting.

Storyboarding

With the JTBD in mind, I drew the storyboard that emphasizes the benefits of system to sort out how this design could help the entrepreneur during their journey in the accelerator.

It was modified based on staff feedback and limitation and focuses on how the system can help the user landed on their goal.

JTBD

As an entrepreneur,
I want to access to curated resources (experts, events, etc.)
so that I can achieve my company goal.

User flow

The current on-boarding process for new cohorts includes a 14-page survey that helps MassChallenge to learn more about the startup company. I wanted to replace the questionnaire with a more user-friendly wizard that requires fewer efforts to finish.

After some exploration, I came out with the user flows that illustrate the experience as a first-time user (new cohorts) and a recurring user (current cohorts in the program and alumni).

First-Time Users

Recurring Users

First-Time Users

User Goal

Onboard with program benefits and goal setting

Design Goal

Create an easy on-boarding process and acquire the updated user information

User Flow

Click the link to matching system from on-boarding email
Enter startup’s information, goals and specialty
Match their needs with the resource provided by MassChallenge, including experts, mentors, staff office hours, investors, events, workshops, etc

Recurring Users

User Goal

Optimize the resources to make the business grow

Design Goal

Increase the stickiness and keep the user information updated

User Flow

Design multi-channel entrances: from staff, email, event registration, WiFi login, etc.

For example, when the startup signs up for the event, we would add some columns to collect new information. If their profile is not updated for a certain amount of the time, when they login to the WiFi in the office, they will be reminded to update their profile for the latest resource.

Make them update their profile before granting the access to the resources
Track if startups pivot or shift focus, keep the contact updated

Iteration

Wireframe

Focusing On First-Time Users

Due to the time limitation, I shifted my focus on on-boarding experience for first-time users because I wanted to create a great first-touch.

I created several versions of low fidelity wireframes using Balsamiq and Figma demonstrating the wizard from collecting data to displaying the matching result.

High-fid prototype

A matching system providing curated resources, including potential investors, mentors, events, office hours, to get help in key areas necessary for company success.

Landing Page

Goal Setting

Goal setting is proved to be a powerful process for motivating startup to turn their vision of this future into reality. It also helps the accelerator to provide related resources to the startup.

Company Specialty

To solve the mismatch information between the area MassChallenge called the startup and what they call themselves, the startup can enter the company information with several keywords.

Validation

Concept Testing

Positive Feedback From Leaderships

We arranged several meeting to seek the feedback from stakeholders and we received very positive feedback. They were excited to hear a system that can solve some of the problems brought up by the startup.

Program Manager
Data Manager
Data Manager
Startup Services Manager
Managing Director

Discovered A More Significant Scope

Gamification system encouraging startups to explore more
Customization based on its industry and stage

For example: Customization based on their industries and stages or a gamification system encouraging startups to explore the resource in the accelerator.

Impact

Retiring the Social Platform

The senior leadership also decided to sunset the social platform Mobilize, which is identified as a low usage platform, and resulted in achieving the budget reduction of approximately 500k.

Provided More Related Resources to Startups

1. Opened startup directory to all the startups

2. Included more relevant content on the dashboard for all the users (not just alumni!)

Next Steps

Future implementation

1. A/B testing different functionalities

2. Add gamification design into the system

3. Customize based on startup’s industry and stage