Using human-centered design to recover a use(r)less case
The following is a guest post written by Gina Hollenbach from FUNDES Catalyst, an impact venture studio that aims to unleash the sustainable development of Latin America through the growth of small businesses.
What do you do when the solution you’ve built doesn’t have any interested users? You reinvestigate your target audience while you iterate and adapt until you discover what’s not working.
This is what happened with Pymental, a tech venture of FUNDES Catalyst that aims to upskill Latin American micro-business owners with digital skills and connect them to appropriate digital tools via a hidden marketplace platform. Through our partnership with Strive Community, we were able to pivot an earlier version of Pymental into a new model while maintaining the same ambitious impact goals. Here’s how that process went:
The decision to pivot
Our decision to pivot began with insights gained from field interviews during the summer of 2022. Below is a side-by-side comparison of adjustments made between Pymental 1.0 and Pymental 2.0 as a result of these insights.
The most crucial takeaway from Pymental 1.0 was that restaurants and beauty salons weren’t interacting with the platform at expected levels. Artisans, however, made up the largest user segment on the platform (over 35%). We also learned through these interviews that Pymental’s gamification practices were too complex for users, and that users didn’t want to be provided with three to five recommendations of “good-fit” tools (as was the case in Pymental 1.0’s comparator feature). They wanted a singular, “best-fit tool” recommendation, provided through FUNDES’ expertise. After discussing these findings with our partners at Strive Community, we together decided that an adjustment was needed.
(Re)designing our solution
Adjusting our platform meant going back to the drawing board and redesigning our solution by identifying opportunity spaces, narrowing down the highest-impact users, and choosing the highest-impact model shifts.
- Narrowing down highest-potential users. After extensively interviewing Pymental 1.0’s user segments (artisans, restaurants, and beauty salons), we discovered that artisans in Mexico had the most available time, interest in digital tools, and existing digital activity. (Read more about this in our previous blog post.) Additionally, artisanal products are easily transported and therefore easier to sell online.
- Identifying needs. To identify artisans’ pain points, our team used the Jobs-to-Be-Done framework, a user-centric design framework for mapping a user segment’s needs. We also considered the geographical scope of the project given the populations of key user segments in each country.
- Choosing highest-impact model shifts. We shifted Pymental’s digital tool recommendation to provide a single relevant tool (in comparison to the three to five tools recommended in Pymental 1.0). We also adopted the micro-learning trend as a high-impact shift for capacity building. Instead of longer courses (which were offered in Pymental 1.0), Pymental 2.0 creates content in small, micro-learning videos focusing on practical “how-to” content (for example, “How to sell your products on Facebook Marketplace”) that can be watched in less than five minutes.
This phase led to what is now Pymental 2.0 — a practical “how-to” micro-learning and hidden digital tool marketplace platform that connects Mexican artisans with relevant digital tools and the skills to implement these tools in their businesses.
Developing and testing our design
Together, our development and business design teams implemented new micro-video capability and platform navigation features. We developed a landing page, which represented the functionalities and design of the real platform, to show to artisans in Mexico City. This allowed us to better understand needed improvements in our value proposition and in platform usability. For example, from showing our first landing page to artisans in Mexico City, we realized the fundamental role of simple platform functionality. Users needed clear “Call to Actions” and straightforward platform navigation capabilities, which we improved for the initial launch of the platform and continue to improve with new learnings.
Creating our launch strategy
Once we finished developing the first version of the Pymental 2.0 web app, we began creating our launch strategy.
- Step 1: Onboarding existing users. We designed a campaign to re-engage existing Pymental users using Botmaker, a direct messaging app. We contacted registered users of Pymental 1.0 and introduced the new features of Pymental 2.0. Of the 2,200 registered artisan users on Pymental 1.0, 57% (1,270) continued to be active on Pymental 2.0. Of the segment of artisan users who remained active, 70% either visited Pymental 2.0 or interacted with Pymental 2.0’s content as a result of this remarketing campaign.
- Step 2. Identifying high-potential online and offline artisan communities. Our business design team extensively researched online and offline artisan communities, where it would be possible to share the Pymental platform with hundreds (if not thousands) of artisans at once. Our offline marketing strategy is based on in-person visits to, and collaborations with, artisan markets and associations. Reaching online communities includes communicating within relevant artisan Facebook groups and establishing relationships with online artisan marketplaces. Based on the needs of each community, our team offers in-person capacity-building training with our field consultant team, personalized training over WhatsApp, or online training sessions through platforms such as Zoom or Google Meet.
- Step 3: Creating target user profiles. During several workshops, our team mapped more than 15 different artisan profiles to narrow down our target users and identify their unique needs. This mapping was a crucial part of identifying our target user profile, which our field consultant team uses to identify and onboard individuals to the platform. It also helped us develop components of our communication strategy, such as where and how we would communicate with target users.
Learning is an ongoing process
Pymental is, and always will be, in the learning phase. We are constantly trying to better understand the user journeys through our platform using measurement tools such as Hotjar, Mixpanel, and Google Analytics. These help us identify any blocks that need to be resolved and improve those journeys.
We are also always learning about reaching artisans. Since its launch, Pymental 2.0 has been visited by 15,000 individuals interested in our micro-video content, with 3,800 individuals following through to the digital tool recommendation. We expect these numbers to continue to grow as a result of continued digital marketing campaigns and the launch of our field consultant team. In terms of digital marketing, media campaigns on Facebook and YouTube have also been successful in reaching artisans — our most recent paid campaign yielded 5,300 video views with an engagement rate of 61% through YouTube advertisements. Including organic growth, the Pymental YouTube channel (which hosts our YouTube Shorts content as an important funnel to the Pymental platform) has achieved 229,095 cumulative views between January and May 2023 — approximately 76% of the total views since the channel launched last year. Our Facebook campaign yielded 21,700 impressions and a reach of 3,920 users. We’re proud of this progress and excited for the insights that we’ll gain as more potential users visit the Pymental platform.
Looking ahead
Over the next few months, we will better understand the impacts of our online and offline marketing strategies. Pymental’s field consultants will be essential in not only improving the real-life reach of Pymental, but also ensuring that digital tools are implemented and bring tangible benefits to artisan users.
This pivot of Pymental reinforces our belief that adaptation, constant iteration, and human-centered design should serve as the core of building impact-focused ventures.
