Checking or validating a business idea is a crucial step in creating a new product, especially in a competitive niche, such as mobile applications for long-haul truckers in the USA. Ukrainian company SoloWay validated this idea from scratch in 4 weeks and shared their insights in an article.
What was the client’s request?
The client is the owner of a US-based TIR logistics company. They have been in the transportation business for over 15 years, have their own truck park, and are actively investing in innovative logistics projects. The client approached us with an idea that they have been passionate about for some time: to develop a mobile application for truck drivers (trucks) in the USA.
Although similar apps already exist in the American market, they are aimed primarily at experienced drivers and specifically at Americans. Meanwhile, among truck drivers, there are many newcomers who are migrants from Eastern European countries, Mexico, Africa, and Asia. In the early stages, they have a poor understanding of English and require clear information regarding vehicle servicing or simply useful contacts in their new country.
According to the client's hypothesis, a multilingual application with socialization features will help drivers to better interact. The goal is to scale the product by extensively adding users and capturing market share similar to Waze.
How did the cooperation take place?
The collaboration process started with a Discovery Phase involving business analysts, UX/UI designers, and project managers.
Product Vision
The first task was to understand how the client envisioned the product and create a Product Vision. For effective communication during online workshops with the client, it was important to gather information about the transportation market in the USA at this stage. Since the SoloWay team has specialists with domain expertise in logistics and transportation, we had a good understanding of what we would be dealing with.
We sketched the clien’s vision for the functionality in Feathers Map, then grouped them and supplemented them with the first draft.
We also analyzed the high-level user flow to understand what path the user should go through in the new product. The results of this stage of research were recorded in Miro.
Market analysis
Business model. We had to understand whether this idea made business sense. Together with the client, we worked out the Business Model Canvas to identify potential customers, partners, data and service providers, key value propositions, revenue streams, scalability strategies, and the necessary resources needed to achieve success.
Competitor analysis. Our team identified the key players in this segment of the US logistics market and thoroughly researched them. We were looking for what is common and different, how our app will differ from the existing ones, what our killer feature is (a feature that gives a competitive advantage), and a breakthrough solution in the market. For example, we found out that not all competitors have such options as truck stop reviews or night navigation mode in their apps.
At this stage, we learned more about product development opportunities and potential risks, threats, and competitors’ failures. This will help us develop the product more carefully and avoid critical mistakes.
“Analyzing mature applications that have a wide range of functionality and many technical integrations with many services was a significant challenge for us. It was important for both us and the client to understand whether it was worth taking on this product from a technical standpoint and whether we would face powerful competitors at the launch stage.”
Andriy Khomyn, Head of Business Analysis at SoloWay
The need for the product. To understand how much the transportation market needs another app, we developed Buyer Personas, which are typical portraits of potential users. We studied their basic needs, goals, and fears.
Target audience research. Our next task was to learn firsthand about the needs of these people by immersing ourselves in their daily work routines. We created a list of questions and conducted over ten in-depth interviews with typical U.S. truck drivers based on the portraits we had already developed.
New immigrant drivers and experienced American drivers shared their experiences of how their day on the road goes, what problems they face on the road, what they fear, and what improvements they would like to see. This is how we got a picture of a typical trucker’s working day in the United States and collected more than 200 insights.
In particular, it turned out that the key needs of drivers include truthful reviews about stops, minimal daily rest periods, and the availability of information in their native language. This allowed us to validate our hypotheses based on the functionality we generated in the previous stages of the research.
“It was very informative to communicate directly with truck drivers from the United States and to “ride along” with them, albeit remotely. This allowed us to identify key pain points and design a solution that best suits the end users.”
Andriy Khomyn, Head of Business Analysis at SoloWay
Together with a team of business analysts and designers, we identified the most important insights, transformed them into key needs of future users, and selected the ones with the highest priority (those that drivers mentioned more often). Next, we rethought our hypotheses and vision of the app’s functionality.
Idea generation
Being aware of the users’ real needs, we moved on to the stage of generating solutions to address these needs in our product. Creative brainstorming sessions involved the client’s representatives, business analysts, UX designers, specialists in logistics, and other industry experts. This approach made it possible to look at the realization of drivers' needs from different perspectives.
After several sessions, we generated more than 100 ideas and solutions that formed the basis of the future app’s functionality. The team prioritized them according to the Importance & Time For Development matrix: they divided all the functionality into groups and chose those that best solve problems and address needs. This category can be implemented within the MVP version of the product.
The next step was to create a Story Map: our business analysts turned a set of ideas into specific Epics and User Stories. In fact, this is a decomposition of the key app’s functionality, which can be used to estimate the cost of work for the client.
Of course, we immediately identified the product's versioning: what is critically important to do in each iteration. Based on the Story Map, our UX specialists developed a high-level User Flow Map, which became the basis for creating a clickable prototype of the DriVerse mobile app. And business analysts developed a visual structure to make it easier for the technical team and the client to understand the functionality.
Prototyping
Based on business analysis data, UX experts created a visual interactive prototype of a mobile application. Depending on the package of services, our team provides clients with low-fidelity or high-fidelity prototypes, which:
- can serve as part of a design or presentation to investors;
- provide the client and the technical team with an understanding of how the product will work;
- help to test the product on real users and get the first feedback.
Next, we engaged solution architects, who helped us form a clear vision of the technical architecture and select the appropriate technological solutions for the product. We also analyzed the set of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) we were going to integrate with, which is very valuable to understand before the development stage. If APIs are closed or do not provide critical data, this can become a big problem.
Finally, with a product description broken down into functionality, technical architecture, and a visual prototype, we were able to estimate the cost of the work.
What did the client get?
The SoloWay team completed the Discovery Phase in a fairly short period of time — 4 weeks (usually the process can take up to 6 weeks). During this period, the client's idea turned into a set of artifacts that would help them make a decision about investing in the product:
- a comprehensive analysis, including Competitors Analysis, Business Model Canvas, Market Overview, Personas Analysis, User Flow Analysis;
- Product Vision: a vision of the future product functionality based on the collected insights from in-depth interviews and brainstorming sessions, which were transformed into a specific Story Map functionality map;
- a visual interactive prototype;
- technical justification: development technologies, visual architecture;
- cost estimation.
Tools we used:
- Miro
- Figma
- Photoshop
- Google Trends
- Google Docs
- Statista
- Ahrefs
- Jira
- Confluence
- Zoom
- Lucid Chart
- Grammarly
- Postman
- JSON/XML Reader
- VPN
Additionally, our marketing team provided services in developing a brand, logo, researching market potential, developing a presentation for investors, and preparing a market entry strategy.
«We managed to find unique and optimal solutions, both technical and business. Our team gained new experience in conducting the Discovery Phase in the key domain of logistics and transportation. We thank the client for this opportunity and wish them success in developing their product»
Andriy Khomyn, Head of Business Analysis at SoloWay
Conclusions
To test the idea for viability, study the market and target audience, you need to start with the Discovery Phase. Its results are critical for validating the idea.
«In a few weeks of cooperation with the client during the Discovery Phase, our team managed to fully immerse ourselves in the client's business and gather a lot of insights from the market where the product is planned to be launched,» says Andriy Khomyn, Head of Business Analysis at SoloWay.
If you need to conduct a high-quality Discovery Phase for a new product, you can use our service packages or contact SoloWay managers who will advise you on the best solution.
This article was written in cooperation with SoloWay