01
What was the Problem ?
The Melanin Village (TMV) employs a variety of solutions for its services, but these solutions are spread across different platforms. This fragmentation forces users to create multiple accounts, causing significant friction in accessing content. The lack of integration means the services operate as isolated components rather than a cohesive system. Consequently, TMV faces high maintenance costs, inefficient workaround processes, and limited scalability. This has negatively affected the retention rate for the new users of the TMV, currently at 20%, which is significantly behind the target of 35%.
What was the Proposed Solution?
A low-code platform using FlutterFlow was proposed to unify all of TMV's services into a single hub, aiming to significantly improve new user retention. FlutterFlow was selected after a comprehensive market analysis and an evaluation of TMV's tech stack.
What was the MVP?
The MVP focused on providing essential functionalities that enable users to create and customize their profiles, manage group and event participation, connect and communicate with other members, and efficiently manage notifications. The MVP aimed to deliver core value by facilitating community engagement through group activities, events, and direct messaging, while also ensuring a smooth onboarding process with social media integration. This foundation set the stage for building a vibrant, interactive community, addressing primary user needs and business goals effectively. The MVP was a critical tool in collecting usage data and improving the solution via a data-driven approach.
What was the Business Model?
A freemium strategy was proposed aiming to balance offering essential functionalities to free users while incentivizing upgrades to premium subscriptions. By strategically placing paywalls at key engagement points, the platform maximized value for paying users and encouraged free users to transition to premium plans. For example, free users were able to see the social feed, however, in order to react with the comments, they would be directed to a login page where they would either login or purchase the subscription package of their choice.
What was Built?
An agile approach maximized value for TMV and its users by dividing the project into four epics. Techfleet prioritized the "Community and Social" epic, delivering low-fi and mid-fi designs for the MVP. A third-party agency implemented the MVP in FlutterFlow and released it to TMV users. Usage data from the rollout informed iterative improvements, while completing remaining user stories and epics.
Prototype
What was the Impact?
The MVP design marked a pivotal step in TMV's next-generation platform, saving TMV over $10K. With its launch on FlutterFlow, TMV anticipates gathering crucial usage data to inform the full product launch. The expected post-launch retention rate aims to significantly improve, potentially meeting or surpassing the targeted 35% 30-day retention rate.