Taking on Salesforce with a new design philosophy for B2B SaaS sales
Role:
Design Lead
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Client:
MetaCX
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Agency:
Anthroware
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Year:
Q4 2020
CHALLENGE
How might we design a shared space for buyer and suppliers to transparently collaborate and align needs with capabilities?
I served as designer and consultant to a Bay Area Startup that had recently completed a $14 million Series A. Anthroware was hired to work with MetaCX at the direction of MetaCX's new head of product, previously a head of UX Research at Facebook. As the sole designer on this project, my role was to provide a fresh, unbiased, outside perspective of their product and company. My work included participating in a design sprint, facilitating a series of user interviews, working with their design team to complete a looks-like Visiontype, and (not included here due to sensitivity) facilitating key stakeholder interviews, creating strategic Northstar goals, and completing a product development roadmap with their leadership team.
CHALLENGE
Role and responsibilities
- Design lead
- UX strategy
- Business analyst
- Concept development
- User interviews
- Visiontype creation
- Executive Northstar workshop facilitator
Team Makeup: This project was divided into several stages. The first stage was a multi-week, remote design sprint that was hosted by a designer from Design Map. The rest of the group included the 4-person MetaCX team and me.
Process & Tools: We used Google's standard design sprint process and miro to collaborate during the sprint.
CHALLENGE
Product innovation: Removing information siloes common in the SaaS sales process
MetaCX's core product innovation involves the creation of a CRM that intimately links sales to customer success teams. This end-to-end experience helps reduce information silos that often occur in enterprise sales, resulting in poor buyer outcomes. A major design innovation, is the idea of a buyer-supplier "bridge" or dynamic space where the buyer can track their ROI over time, increasing transparency and communication between both parties.
Client Homepage: Transparency between buyer and seller and "shared success" is a core tenant of the product experience.
Business Model Discovery: One new business opportunity I uncovered was the idea of a dedicated group-prayer feature that could be used as a standalone app for non-members interested in joining the community.
CHALLENGE
Creating a visiontype
After completing the design sprint and generating design concepts for a 5-year outlook. Our team set out to design a Visiontype, or future-oriented prototype. To tell a compelling story, we created two fictional companies working together to form a business relationship. The following Figma prototypes show my key ideas, early sketches and wireframes.
CHALLENGE
Final concept prototypes
- Paradigm 1 - Needs & Capabilities Chatbot
- Paradigm 2 - Circular Kanban
- Paradigm 3 - Reimagined Customer "Bridge"
CHALLENGE
Northstar direction and product roadmap (not shown)
After working directly with the design team to create a Visiontype the projected entered a new stage. Along with Anthroware's CEO and Creative Director, I worked with MetaCX's leadership team to craft a compelling strategic Northstar direction and product development roadmap. This involved key stakeholder interviews and several workshop sessions to facilitate team alignment.