PROject: HanDIY evolved

PROject represents the cumulation of my vision for a better way to plan and execute home projects.

Current Status: In Development (starting early December 2023)

History

• I designed a data-oriented Learning Management System to help reduce the barrier to high quality education
• I researched and designed this product as a University research and entrepreneurship project
• This resulted in an idea called “Consophia”
• Consophia can be thought of as a LMS (D2L’s Brightspace for example) + Wikipedia + AI
• Consophia was a HUGE idea…
• So we spun off HanDIY as it’s own product
• HanDIY was the live interaction portal designed for Consophia and can exist on it’s own
• Learn more about my experience with HanDIY in this blog post coming soon!
• When HanDIY wound down we were left with 3 major learnings
  • HanDIY relied on multiple expensive and complex technologies to operate – not optimal for an MVP
  • HanDIY relied on having a notable amount of users present at launch – not optimal for an MVP
  • HanDIY relied on notable consumer confidence in the product/brand to grow – not optimal for an MVP
  • HanDIY must release quickly to gather feedback and validate it’s marketability
• These above categories of learning resulted in a new approach and idea
• I worked at D2L to get closer to modern LMS technology and education technology in general
• I moved into partnerships at D2L to gain a wider perspective on the edTech landscape
• I moved into product management at Shinydocs to apply myself to building, launching and managing products
• Sometime during my successful time at Shinydocs I designed PROject
• PROject could be considered a spinoff of HanDIY as it takes the “project context” planning tool to become it’s own product
• PROject was designed to:
  • Minimize reliance on expensive and complex technologies – enable LEAN launch and iterations
  • Minimize the need for notable amount of users at launch – enable a scalable MVP launch with a focused user group
  • Minimize the need for high consumer confidence – avoid: payments, advice giving, user data collection
  • Launch quickly, fail quickly, gather as much data as possible before full launch, use data to iterate

Pre-MVP Product Management

1. Take all feedback from HanDIY relating to “project context” planning tool and summarize
2. Use this to design a focused application purely for project planning
3. Iterate on designs
   • Step 1: Simply Usable
   • Step 2: Ideate – what is possible with unlimited budget + deep market research + competitor research
   • Step 3: Demo, gather feedback, usability testing
   • Step 4: Use feedback to reduce features to an MVP
   • Step 5: Demo, gather feedback, usability testing of the MVP prototype
4. Build interest and support
   • Connect with technical co-founder candidates
   • Gather testimonials
   • Create basic marketing resources + Business plan (as well as product, development, and company plans)
   • Gather waitlist
   • Expand demos and feedback rounds to more of trusted + target market/network
5. Plan MVP path to launch
   • The faster the better
   • Fundamental technology first (demoable)
   • Barebones inexpensive MVP technical scoping

What is PROject?

PROject is simply the world’s first universal project planner for home renovation/improvement and general DIY projects.

PROject aims to combine features such as whiteboarding, inspiration boards, and project planners into a simple experience.

PROject makes it incredibly easy to

1. Gather and store any web-based guides in a central location
2. Provide the most helpful tools for project planning
3. Allow complete control over board layout
4. Start, learn, apply, and COMPLETE projects

Development

Please check back soon for more details! Development is starting NOW!

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