Series: Why we love our customers

Most startups are happy to have users. At LaunchPad Central, we are fortunate to have an extremely engaged customer base eager to want us as a company to succeed. This  drives us to move faster and work harder. Given the cadence at which we operate, we wanted to pause and share with you what we have heard from you, what we have done, and what we are working on for you. The areas we have received the most input on include:

Overall User Interface and Experience (UI/UX)

Business Model Canvas (BMC)

Messaging

Account Management

Site responsiveness

Let’s take a closer look at each of these areas…

————— 

User Interface and Experience

Yes, we know. This is where we have the most work to do. This is where we have the greatest potential for improvement. This is what differentiates a prototype from a product. And this is where we are allocating our resources. Our team is feverishly working on incredible things ranging from easier data entry, to personalized application views, to better data visualization tools. Excited? So are we and we look forward to your feedback.

Summer is usually associated with relaxation and time-off. That’s nice, but we will be working harder than ever to deliver the greatest experience possible to our valued customers. We know they aren’t taking a break, or slowing down, and we want to equip them with the tools that will help them change the world. So keep an eye out for changes this summer, coming to a screen near you. 

Business Model Canvas (BMC)

As one of the pillars of the Lean LaunchPad methodology, the BMC is a critical touch point for all of our customers. Perhaps the most intimidating time is the initial population of the BMC. The number of clicks it took to completely fill a BMC was creating friction. We spoke with many customers to find an improved workflow that would allow entrepreneurs to spend less time clicking, and more time talking (with customers). Again, our next release greatly reduced the number of clicks, and made the overall workflow more straightforward as was confirmed by customers sending us Thank You notes.. 

Messaging

The messaging functionality was originally built to allow teams to ask their mentors and instructors for help. This initial scope was extremely narrow and we did not consider this as a core component. However, we quickly discovered that the messaging feature was the primary touch point for mentors, and soon found ourselves flooded with requests to improve its usability and utility. Thanks to our agile development team and rapid usability tests, we were able to release an updated version of Messaging. 

Immediately, we received glowing responses on the improvements made. While attending a Berkeley Lean LaunchPad class, one of the mentors made sure we knew how much he “loved’ the changes we made, and that is precisely the reaction we aim for. 

Account Management

The unsung heroes of any LLP program (whether at a university, in an accelerator, or part of a government program) are the admins and coordinators working tirelessly behind the scenes to provide teams with the best chances of success. The last thing they need is software that makes their lives more difficult. From frequent conversations, we have quietly built powerful tools that allow them to operate autonomously without the need to depend on our (awesome) support team. While certain aspects such as the management of user accounts have been addressed, we have even more exciting plans to create a zero-touchpoint process. 

Site Responsiveness

As our customer base has grown, so has our investment in engineering and site performance. When we released the Presentations feature (another much loved feature), allowing teams to collect and provide feedback to each other in a centralized repository, we drastically increased the concurrent usage load on our site. Upon witnessing performance issues first-hand, and hearing the same thing from distant customers, we buckled down to optimize speeds in key areas. We realize we are no Google yet, but we have improved performance by 10X and will continue to work on this area further.

 

Now get out of the building,

The LaunchPad Central Team

Team Presentations Workflow

This is a guide for setting up and running your weekly presentations in LPC (using the Team Presentations feature). This walkthrough will be most helpful if you are a:

  • Teaching/Course Assistant
  • Program Coordinator
  • Operations Lead

The typical workflow for weekly team presentations is as follows:

  1. Create Team Presentation posts for all teams
  2. Teams link to their presentation slides (hosted on Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, etc.)
  3. Everyone logs into LPC
  4. “Team 01” begins presentation
  5. Everyone provides feedback on “Team 01”
  6. Repeat steps 4-5 for all teams

Steps 1-2 are done prior to the actual presentations, while steps 3-6 are done during the presentations. Let’s walk through each of these steps in more detail.

  1. You will notice a link at the sub node (cohort) level called “PRESENTATIONS”. Clicking this will open a new window [1].  If you are managing the cohort you will see a button on the left to create Team Presentation posts for all the teams. Click this. 

    If there is a folder that you are storing all the presentations, feel free to input that link.
  2. All teams will now have a Team Presentation post for the date entered. It will be the teams’ responsibility to edit the post you have created for them to link directly to their presentation file. 
  3. It is now presentation time. Have everyone log into LPC and click the ”PRESENTATIONS” link
  4. Navigate to the first team that is presenting by clicking on their name from the left sidebar. 

  5. Team members and mentors will provide their feedback to the teams in “Peer Inputs” while instructors will be able to privately discuss the team’s presentation in “Private Instructor Inputs” and provide scoring for future reference. The teams will not be able to see these.
  6. Easily switch to the next team by selecting their name from the left sidebar as before. 

As a treat, we decided to throw in one more thing to make your lives just a little better - the ability to export all the comments, inputs, and scores for analysis (or whatever kids are doing with data these days). Just click the export button!

[1] This is because we noticed that people tend to like to have multiple windows open when teams are presenting. For example, you might want to have a team’s business model canvas open while providing feedback on their presentation. 

Messages (redesigned)

Today, we are very excited, and we think many of you will be, too. 

Messages was initially designed for the sole purpose of allowing teams to ask their mentors for help (i.e. a useful contact at a company). With this limited scope in mind, the first version of Messages was quite limited. Soon we saw cohorts using Messages for more robust communications and received an incredible amount of feedback on the necessity to improve its functionality and interface. We took this to heart and began iterating.

Based on customer feedback and usage patterns we are thrilled to be releasing a redesigned version of Messages. There was a lot of rework on the backend, along with a lot of interface changes. For the sake of brevity, let’s cover the basics of how Messages works now.

Guide:

Navigate to your Messages by clicking on the link in the header. If you have any unread messages you will see a notification badge.

There are three folders in Messages:

  • Inbox - new messages/replies for you (or your team)
  • Sent - messages you have created or replied to
  • Archive - anything not in your Inbox or Sent folder

When you create a new message, it will appear in your Sent folder initially. Once someone replies, it will appear in your Inbox. You can send any message to your Archive if the conversation is over by checking the Archive checkbox. If someone reignites the conversation, it will reappear in your Inbox.

To compose a new message is incredibly easy. Simply:

  1. Click the Compose button
  2. Select the recipients (see as you select)
  3. Write your message (now with formatting!)
  4. Send

If you have your Message Reply Notifications turned on, you will receive an email when someone replies. You are able to customize the types of email notifications you receive in your Profile Settings, 

Messages are naturally displayed in a condensed tabular format. Clicking on any message row will expand it to reveal more information and a field to continue the conversation. Clicking on the row again will collapse it.

There is always room for improvement, but we truly believe the changes we have made will enhance the usability and utility of it dramatically. 

Now get out of the building,

The LaunchPad Central Team

Account Management

This feature is only available to those who have been granted access as an OPS ADMIN. This post will act as a running guide on the Account Management feature. Feature updates can be found here.

Account Management puts the power of account creation, modification, and deletion in the hands of the operations admin for your organization. The same applies to teams. Things you can change with Account Management include:

  • Weekly Start Date - when the stats are reset to zero and invalidations  are cleared from the canvas
  • Users - email, name, role/permissions, title, team assignment (if applicable)
  • Teams - name, description, industry, group (if applicable)

Account/team creation is limited by the number of licenses purchased by each sub node. If you require additional licenses, please you the request button.

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You can switch which cohort you are managing by clicking on the dropdown.

The tables of information are sortable by clicking on any column header or by using the search bar in the upper right. Click the blue pencil icon to edit a user’s information and click the red trash icon to delete them. Please use caution when deleting an account. Deletion will remove not only the user’s access, but also anything they have entered into LPC. This includes, but is not limited to, all posts and comments ever made.

You can toggle between adding users and teams by selecting the tabs.

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Be sure to create teams before creating users, as MEMBERS and MENTORS are required to be assigned to a team in order to be created. 

As always, if you have any questions on how to make the most of Account Management at your organization, feel free to shoot us an email at support@launchpadcentral.com.

Now get out of the building,

The LaunchPad Central Team

Resource Hub Management

This feature is only available to those who have been granted access as an OPS ADMIN. This post will act as a running guide on how to manage the Resource Hub. Feature updates can be found here.

Each sub node (cohort) is provided their own unique Resource Hub that can be populated with useful links and files for the cohort to share. You will know which sub node you are modifying based on the title. Clicking on this allows you to switch between the various sub nodes in the organization.

image

Current (tab):

Managing the Resource Hub is quite simple. Each row is essentially a hyperlink, where you decide on:

  • the title of the link (how users will see it)
  • the URL (or source)
  • who is able to see it (dependent on role)

You are able to add as many as you like. Some of the most common items we see customers using the Resource Hub for include:

  • Lean LaunchPad materials/references
  • Customer Development Best Practices
  • Startup Toolkits
  • Example presentations
  • Event calendars
  • Class syllabus (if academic)

Below the general links is an area called “Current Week (live)”. These are links able to be shared to only certain groups within a cohort. An example of this would be if you wanted to host remote presentations/discussions for only certain teams. If your cohort does not have multiple groups, then you can simply fill in “-” for each field to save the form. 

image

Be sure to Save your form after any changes.

Archive (tab):

The Archive is a way to store resources over time. For example, if you record the team presentations every week, you will be able to post the links to the recordings on a weekly basis for all the teams.

image

Be sure to Save your form after any changes.

BOOM! Invalidated.

Have you ever looked at your business model canvas in LaunchPad Central and wished you could just invalidate hypotheses from there? Well now you can!

Some great conversations we have had from the brilliant entrepreneurs using LPC has focused our team on reducing the number of clicks to get things done. One of the biggest culprits was invalidating a hypothesis from your business model canvas. There are several key changes we have made that make this process much easier. 

Experiments are optional

  • You do not need to create experiments in order to validate or invalidate a hypothesis (although it is still highly encouraged)

Invalidate icon on canvas

  • An invalidation icon appears when you hover over a hypothesis on your canvas. Click the icon to strike that hypothesis off your canvas.  

Quicker Deletion and Toggling

  • When you click on a hypothesis from your canvas, you will immediately see a more pronounced DELETE button at the top, as well as the ability to toggle the state of your assumption. 

These may seem like minor changes, but they drastically decrease the number of clicks it takes to keep you canvas up-to-date and get back to the important things - like talking to customers. 

We have some more goodies in the pipeline that will make creating your business model canvas in the first place, much easier and faster. Stay tuned.

Now get out of the building,

The LaunchPad Central Team

Peer Inputs and Instructor Grading!

Are you running a class, a cohort, or group of startup teams? Do you follow the Lean LaunchPad methodology and have your teams perform weekly presentations? Then you are in for treat!

This has been something that has annoyed us, and several of our customers, from the company’s inception. Previously, we had all been using large and complex Google Docs for two reasons:

  1. to allow teams to provide inputs to each other during their weekly presentation updates
  2. to provide instructors with a private area to discuss a team’s status and trajectory

These large Google Docs were the MVP of this functionality, and therefore, were extremely cumbersome and difficult to maintain. 

We finally received enough validation from customers to devote the resources to incorporating this functionality within LaunchPad Central, and we are thrilled to already see customers taking advantage of it!

But how do we use it?

In case you have not had the chance to dive into this new functionality, let us help you run through the workflow. 

First, let us set up the environment. Imagine you have ten teams in your cohort. The day of presentations, each team will need to:

  1. create a new “Team Presentation” post in LPC
  2. link to the Dropbox (or similar cloud storage service) folder where there presentation is being stored

Now it is time for the first team to present. 

All the other teams and faculty would now navigate to Team 1’s page and click on their freshly created Team Presentation post. 

Students will then be able to input their feedback in the Peer Inputs section and instructors will be able to private discuss in the Private Instructor Inputs section (which teams cannot see). If you are an instructor, be sure to submit a score along with your comments!

The box everyone inputs their comments into is your one box for feedback. What this means is that if you:

  1. Type “Great job team!”
  2. Post the Comment
  3. Delete text so the box has “Great job”
  4. Update the comment

Then your comment will only say “Great job”. This works the same way a single cell in a Google Spreadsheet functions. 

Whew, that was a lot to take in! Luckily, once you experience the awesome-ness of this new functionality for the first time, it all makes sense and you wonder how you lived without it. 

Our team really listened to customers on this one, and worked hard to get it up and running for the new year. We have already received great feedback on people using it, but hope that even more fall in love with this!

Now get out of the building,

The LaunchPad Central Team

Team Profiles and Market Assessment

What a great way for us to start out 2013!

Educators, accelerators, and startups have been asking for a way to showcase their teams for quite some time. Previously, there was no way to tell who was on a team, what the team did, or what their market looked like. That is all changing.

Yesterday, we released two new features which can be found on all team pages under the PROFILE link.

With the Profile page, teams can not only provide information on what their startup does, but also on each of the team members. This is all towards creating a richer context for instructors, facilitators, mentors, and advisors.

Market Assessment was an essential component that we had received a lot of demand for. Too many entrepreneurs fail due to not recognizing what type of market they are in, or having hallucinations about the size of their actual Target Market. Mentors were never able to know what their startups were thinking before, but now they can actively advise based upon a team’s Profile.

If you are new to market assessments, be sure to take advantage of the “What would Steve do?” videos included inline for your convenience.

We hope everyone enjoys these new features. This is just the beginning. 2013 is going to be a big year!


Now get out of the building,
The LaunchPad Central Team

The First Step Toward Visualization

Have you logged into LaunchPad Central lately?

You may have become accustomed to seeing the leaderboard as a table of numbers. It has been great, you get to see how everyone in your cohort is doing compared to one another. But how is everyone doingas a cohort ? And how what are the trends? Before, it was difficult to get a sense of this. No more!

cohort visualization graph

We recently released our first step towards visualizing the data captured in the leaderboard. You can now quickly see how your cohort is doing along each metric, and if they are staying on pace for their “outside the building” activities.

Think of this as a teaser.

Capturing, analyzing, and visualizing the journey of startups is something we hold very close to our hearts. It is at the core of what inspires us and what we do. The insights we have been able to gain from our incredible customers has been overwhelming (in a great way). We have big plans on turning all of these incredible lessons learned into realities.

Now get out of the building,

The LaunchPad Central Team

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