Connecting ambitious college students and supportive business professionals
OVERVIEW
Legup is professional networking application that prepares college students for the workforce by connecting them with supportive business professionals.
MY ROLE
TIMELINE
2 Weeks
Product Designer
THE PROBLEM
The majority of college students feel unprepared to enter to workforce, and while 80% of jobs are a result of a personal connection1, just over 30% of career service offices provide training on networking.
THE GOAL
Build an app that is solely dedicated to networking.
Thoughtful Execution Framework
In a previous project on Spotify we discovered a unique framework for developing products in a meaningful way. It starts with a goal, which then leads to research to problems/opportunities, hypotheses, solutions, and learnings. The framework is useful because it visualizes the process hierarchy in a simple yet effective way.
The process begins with a goal: Connect college students with business professionals.
The next step is to conduct research which leads to insights. There were 5 key insights:
I then developed numerous “How Might We” statements based on these insights, followed by hypotheses and design solutions, which you can see by expanding the image.
Design Implications Based on Research Findings
Incorporate a feature found from a competitor that requires an access code for first time users.
Require that students build their talking points and submit them ahead of their meetings.
Give students and professionals the ability to share what they are able to provide.
Generate confidence and desirability through scarcity
Many networking apps out there have low barriers to entry, where anyone can create an account. We want to provide students and professionals with a sense that this is exclusively for them. Oftentimes, the scarcer a resource, the higher the value we assign to it. This is known as the Scarcity Principle.
With this intervention I’d be looking for two outcomes. The first being that the perceived scarcity generates buzz and creates word of mouth among students. The second, and more important, is that we alleviate a key barrier in the minds of professionals. Professionals often prefer that they’re introduced to strangers via a mutual connection. However, first-generation college students are often at a disadvantage when it comes to networking. The intention is that that barrier to entry provides professionals with peace of mind that the students are vetted and vouched for by sheer fact that they’ve got a profile.
Find professionals who provide the value you’re looking for
At a glance, students can see basic but important information about the professionals on the other end.
Students must build their agenda ahead of the meeting
The biggest gripe among professionals is that students are unprepared. The agenda they build takes just a few minutes and is based on the 20-minute networking meeting, a concept developed by Nathan Perez and Marcia Ballinger. Being prepared is not only a courtesy to the other person, but it’s also a good habit for students to develop.
