KeyUp Evolves
Mission
KeyUp exists to create a world in which people from low income backgrounds have paths to the middle class other than getting a 4-year degree. We enable our users to reach those middle class careers by educating them about their non-traditional options and connecting them with existing training services and support programs in a user-friendly way.
Challenges
This week, our main challenge was figuring out which technology we would use to build our MVP. After much experimentation, we have decided on creating a Wordpress site that will be integrated with Typeform and Airtable, among other apps. If any of you all happen to be familiar with Wordpress or know a Wordpress developer, drop us a line. We are figuring it out, but it’d be lovely to have the advice of someone with some expertise.
Happenings
In other news, we met with Isaac Torres of E3 Alliance this week. He had great feedback for us about what information about support programs is most essential for support providers to have about each other and offered to lend a hand at finding guidance counselors to test-drive our KeyUp prototype. This was exciting news not only because guidance counselors will be some of our primary users, but also because they are a big part of our plan to spread the word about KeyUp to students, parents, and support and training organizations. KeyUp’s purpose is to consolidate and make user friendly the complex information guidance counselors are expected to keep track of about careers, training services, and support programs. If we can show value to them, we’ll be a long way toward having our proof of concept.
We also spoke with Jeremy Pine, an anthropologist and general bad-ass who went to my alma mater, Hampshire College (shout out, HC Career Options!). He gave us great feedback about how to ask some of the more sensitive questions that affect a person’s ability to move into new careers, such as their criminal history and immigration status. His solution was to not ask the question at all up front, users to filter their own career options so that they only see careers that are generally friendly to formerly incarcerated people or undocumented people. This suggestion caused us to rethink how the career search filters (and the larger information architecture) of KeyUp will function, but in the best way.
What’s Next?
This coming week, we will form a solid plan to build out our MVP using Wordpress and continue to gather information about careers, training services, and support programs to populate our database. We hope to have a happy path for someone interested in HVAC training built out in a couple weeks. Tune in next week to see our progress!
