User Experience building for Startup Communities
Lessons learned by an Engagement Manager..for other Managers.
“This problem would be so simple to solve if it wasn’t for……people.”
Sounds slightly unreasonable and yet, in the time that I have worked in a startup incubator /accelerator hybrid for the past year and a half, I’m ashamed to say that I have thought this many times.
People are really, really unpredictable — and annoying at times. Designing, planning and executing on services/programs for people in the early-startup stage is not the most straightforward of user stories to tackle.
It’s a mammoth task to understand the true motivations, pains and habits of a single user. Now imagine what it’s like to have that kind of innate understanding of founders at various levels of experience and growth, team members with skills sets that range from software development to graphic design and on top of it, ‘undecideds’ that want to become involved in the community. That’s a lot of different users that you’re trying to keep happy and productive.
I have had the fortune of working with some phenomenal, passionate, intense people from all sorts of backgrounds and here are some fundamental values and baselines that I now bring to all my user stories:
- Proof beyond a doubt: don’t give room for the haters, the nay-sayers and the grouches. Produce excellence. Use hard data and user feedback.
- Planning: When planning sprints and deadlines, do not ignore the physical and emotional limitations of your team. Incorporate it into your planning activities.
- Serve the user, not the paycheque: what motivates you to keep pushing through an insane sprint? Orient the team around building towards a significant positive impact and away from a checklist mentality. Remind your team of that. Nag them about it if you must.
- Dig for the details: Go beyond the generic user description. The user’s experience should be second to your own. Get into those nitty gritty details of who/what/when/how. Have case studies ready. Always be observing the user. Always be mining for more data.
- Demonstrate Humility: Give room for your coordinators, devs, team members and PMs to become independent, strong people that you are building with. Don’t let ego get in the way of executing a well thought out sprint. Work just as hard as you expect the team to.
I have worked around a lot of startups and the teams that are the most successful are the teams that turn their human factor to their advantage. Products that are built in an environment that is based on building people first and then the product ultimately have more longevity and clout.
This perspective might not be unique, but there is a concrete way to apply it to project development.
Try it.
