Entrepreneurial Support Organizations (ESOs)

ESO +

Entrepreneurial Support Services

1 Designer

4 Months

Goals

ESO+ serves as a centralized hub that connects entrepreneurs with Entrepreneurial Support Organizations (ESOs), enhancing collaboration through coaching, resources, and support. Our goal is to simplify the relationship between ESOs, entrepreneurs, and their teams, making communication and tracking progress and success more efficient.

Challenge

We encountered two key challenges: creating a tailored experience for a diverse group of entrepreneurs and focusing on essential features that enhance communication between entrepreneurs and ESOs. While we identified numerous opportunities during design explorations, so we had to inevitably decide which features were most valuable to include for our first iteration.

Our Approach

To tackle this issue, we chose to focus on the essential features that would establish an efficient feedback loop, promoting swift and targeted communication between entrepreneurs and ESOs. Our approach was straightforward: entrepreneurs could request services and report on their outcomes specific to their business, while ESOs could offer assistance and monitor the progress of the teams they supported.

Research

Defining our Audience

Using previously collected data, we defined our audience through various personas. Our main goal was to target marginalized communities in the United States. Approaching this as an “Entrepreneur First” experience, we focused on understanding the lifestyles and circumstances of potential platform users.

Understand the ESO/Entrepreneur relationship

The team at ESO+ fostered a strong connection with potential platform users, enabling us to incorporate continuous feedback during development. We discovered that Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESOs) frequently establish goals for entrepreneurs and monitor their advancement, highlighting the importance of data visualization. They required entrepreneurs to provide regular updates on their milestones at each stage, ensuring transparency and measurable progress.

Findings

Entrepreneurs and ESOs need to communicate frequently.

ESOs prefer visual and incremental data on the progress of their entrepeneurs

Finding the right support for their needs is challenging for entrepreneurs

User Journeys

To enhance the user experience, we designed the platform so that all users share similar functionalities, while certain features are tailored based on user types and roles. We examined each feature from the perspective of how different user types would interact with it, identifying common functionalities and determining where their interactions would differ.

Wireframes

Low fidelity mockups were created to begin to communicate our concepts. Once we began to visualize our ideas, we were able to drill down into the necessary specifics of each feature and prioritize accordingly.

Onboarding Wireframes

ESO Dashboard Wireframes

Features

After sign-off on our approach was reached we began to design the UI and build out the components and screens for each feature.

Onboarding

At this phase we wanted the user to begin to customize their experience. Depending on the paths they chose, we would be able to provide a starter kit of tasks and features related to their needs.

Metric Dashboard

For entrepreneurs, this will serve as their home base. Through metric reporting, they can consistently monitor their progress toward their next goal. ESO’s and team members associated with an entrepreneur will have complete visibility into the entrepreneur’s progress toward milestones.

Milestones

Milestones are essential for the interaction between entrepreneurs and Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESOs). These milestones can be set by either ESOs or entrepreneurs as specific goals. Entrepreneurs can share their progress towards these goals, seek advice from their ESOs, and engage in discussions within each milestone to address needs and share resources, ultimately working towards completing their milestones.

Network

Users will gain access to a network of entrepreneurs, advisors, and coaches. Coaches and Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESOs) can showcase their services and highlight their successes. Entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to display their milestones, goals, and needs. Additionally, they can create posts that are visible to their immediate network. This connectivity fosters collaboration and support, ultimately driving growth and success for all members.

Challenges and Insights

During this journey, we consistently identified numerous promising opportunities that could enhance the platform’s engagement and overall value. However, we recognized the importance of maintaining a manageable scope. While many features were conceptualized, we chose to prioritize the essential elements, ensuring they were executed with excellence. This approach allows us to test and refine these core functionalities before considering the addition of any new features.

Key Takeaways

Refocus often 

Keeping our core goals in mind allowed us to reprioritize in the face of many exciting opportunities.

Keep your users close 

Getting feedback from potential users ensure we stayed on the right track, prioritized the right features and kept the experience from becoming tedious.

How can we make this simpler? 

This question arose repeatedly in our process, helping us focus on the essentials instead of getting bogged down.