Captain’s Log: Week 8

Our eighth week’s reflection of the DivInc Social Justice Innovation accelerator.

Recap

Our seventh week of the accelerator was all about the gift of feedback. We focused on figuring out what searchers and sharers might want, started giving concrete form to our idea, and received candid feedback about what is and isn’t working. During our eighth week, we focused on bringing it all together — what we know about our users and the problem, as pitch day is quickly approaching.

Don’t bury the lede. Folks are responding positively to our concepts in words — 55% would use the product without seeing mockups — but one user completely missed the point of the solution even with mockups.

We need to set better context and show actionable resources earlier in the user experience journey to ensure that they understand what the product does, deliver on our value propositions quickly, and to encourage prolonged engagement with our product. The lack of clarity in our product’s value is a cause for iteration on both our interview protocol and wireframes to ensure we get the most out of our face time with users.

Speaking of lack of clarity, our problem still isn’t clear based on feedback we’re getting. The problem, as we see it, is that managers do not have credible on-demand access to actionable resources to address leadership challenges. Those resources should come from other leaders who understand their context and have experience addressing similar challenges for their teams and organizations. Scaling actionable diversity, equity, and inclusion tactics was our initial goal with Tech Can [Do] Better. Systemic equity is still central to our mission, just as effective and inclusive leadership is central to breaking down those systemic barriers.

Our biggest learnings from the eighth week are:

Traction, traction, traction. One mentor call offered insight into the importance of defining and demonstrating traction with any product, but especially an early stage product like ours. Traction, as he defines it, is ensuring that a user can complete our customer journey and still have confidence in our solution. Ideally, this customer repeats the process and is willing to pay for it. He told us, “Convert one user…then do it again, then do it again.” New bar, set.

Keep iterating. We are realizing that a cornerstone of the founder journey is that there is no, “I’m done.” Priorities and tasks are constantly shifting, so staying aligned is important. However, with that pace comes challenges, namely communication. Our weekly (and sometimes biweekly) wellness checks and commitment to doing one fun thing when we work in-person have allowed us to move through misalignment gracefully.

What’s next

Since we appreciate the gift of feedback, we’re planning to release this soon— keep it a secret, but tell us what you think!

If you’re looking for a quicker start on how to advance DEI and achieve your business outcomes, we’d love to talk to you. Let’s do better.

You can follow our accelerator journey here on Medium, our website, or our social media accounts.

Lawrence Humphrey, Co-founder and CEO of Tech Can [Do] Better

Fallon Blossom, COO of Tech Can [Do] Better