Why We Built Platypus
The simplest way to organize and track your job applications
Three passionate product managers, three job seekers, and one unified problem.
Hi! My name is Bahareh, and for the past 10 weeks I’ve been working on a project with two of my cohort members Amanda and Brandon as part of PMDojo’s Product Accelerator Program. PMDojo’s program is designed for new and experienced product managers who want to improve their product sense and gain practical skills and advance their career into the product field.
About us and why we picked this problem to solve
On the very first day of the program, each participant was asked to pitch one problem statement, then we voted for 3 potential projects from the pool of problem statements, and groups were formed. The interesting part was that no one in our team had initially pitched this particular problem, yet we all could personally identify with the problem, as we were all job seekers at one point and had experienced the pain of tracking job applications.
As an individual who is transitioning into a new industry, we all had faced the frustration that comes with the time-consuming and arduous task of tracking applications when applying for copious amount of jobs and working on the side. So the problem was very personal for us and we had confident that many other job seekers can also identify with this problem. However, in the field of product management validating assumptions is key. First, we needed to narrow down the problem and get into more details.
The Four “W’s”
In order to solidify the problem statement and better understand which part of the problem we are going to focus on, we asked the four “W’s” question.
Who: Who actually has this problem?
What: What is the nature of the problem?
Why: Why is the problem worth solving?
Where: Where does this problem arise?
Then, we created a survey, asking participants to share with us their experience and level of satisfaction with the method that they were using to track their job application.
Market Research and Findings
From the survey results, we saw that an overwhelming majority of the participants (we had 43 responses), found that the process of applying for jobs is indeed frustrating. Some people shared that creating a resume and cover letter that aligns with the job description is also very hard. However, we needed to focus on a very specific section of the problem and dig deeper to find out the cause of the problem. So we arranged a follow-up user interviews with our survey respondents and asked participants to walk us through their process of applying for jobs.
What we found from the survey and user interviews we categorized the following pain points.
Pain Point1: As a job seeker, I have hard time optimizing my resume for each job posting.
Pain Point 2: As a job seeker, I sometimes want to go back to the job description that I have applied for, only to find that there is no record of it.
Pain Point 3: As a job seeker, I have hard time staying motivated during the job search.
Pain Point 4: As a job seeker I lose my contacts and notes regarding the role and the company.
Pain Point 5: As a job seeker, I want to learn about best practices for job search, interviews and follow up.
After applying for many jobs, job seekers fail to follow up on time, or once job seekers are contacted for the interview, they do have difficulty with where to start researching the company, and can’t find the job discretion they
have applied, in order to prepare for the interview. Large opportunity. We have identified the first and second-time job seekers to be our target market group.
Value Proposition Canvas, Customer Profile and Value Map
With the information we gathered from our market research we refined the problem statement and narrowed it down to a specific target user.
Refined Problem Statement
First and second-time job seekers face an inefficient process in tracking job applications and networking contacts.
We have used the Value Proposition Canvas as a tool to virtualize, design and test our ideas on how to create value for our customers. In order to understand our customers we created the Customer Profile. We identified the jobs that our users want to get done, we highlighted our customers pain points and frustration they had with their existing solution, and identified pain and negative outcomes that our users were trying to avoid. Also, we identified the goals that our users were hoping to achieve.
Next we created a corresponding Value Map, identifying how our product might bring value or delight our target user. We described how each proposed project could be a pain releaser and could potentially make life easier for our users. We highlighted in what way each of these services are gain creators and maximize outcome for our users.
Our goal was to create a pleasant experience for job seekers to stay organized and motivated while searching and applying for their next role.
Product Road Map
We created a high-level overview of what we were going to work on for our MVP and an overview of where our product is headed and identified some strategies for our ROI.
The light yellow sticky notes represented, the projects we were going to work on first. We had more clarity on them, we made the wire frames and shown to users for feedback. The dark orange sticky notes were projects that we plan to work on roughly in the next 3 to 6 months. And the orange represent future projects that we are going to work on in the next 6 to 12 months.
The Blue sticky notes on the left side are the success metrics that we are measuring for each project. For our MVP it was important for us to have the landing page, Sign up, Log in page, as well as dashboard, and adding a job to the dashboard.
Incorporating goal setting functionality as well as implementing basic gamification features such as receiving badges upon achievements, are next on our road map. Ability to sync with personal calendar, for deadline reminders and notifications; integration capabilities with various tools and platforms, like LinkedIn, Tech Crunch, Craft are for future development.
Value Proposition
For our MPV we have focused on the job tracking functionality, that helps applicants to store all their job applications, and notes regarding the company and the role in one centralized and organized place.
Next Steps:
We are looking for an UX designer and a developer to improve the UX and build Platypus in house independent of the No Code platform. We are also looking into partnering with government employment agencies to develop content regarding job search best practices, interview preparation and company research.
Thanks for reading! Please share your thoughts below or email me at baharehamali@gmail.com and let’s connect on LinkedIn.
About me : With a background in public service and technology, I strive to help organizations and non-profits to empower communities by leveraging the power of technology in bringing digital public services to the public. My goal is to create more user-centric, efficient, inclusive, and accessible products that have a meaningful and lasting impact on everyday lives.
