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Everwise Mentoring Software

Company-run mentoring at scale

Timeline

Jan 2018 - Apr 2019

Role

Product Design Lead

Company

Everwise

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Challenge: Create a software solution for managed mentoring to expand revenue and scale the company.

1. Context

Company overview

​Everwise is a SaaS leadership development platform. The Everwise platform has 4 main offerings:

  • Managed Mentoring - An Everwise-conducted, comprehensive mentoring experience.

  • Mentoring Software - Tools for companies to implement large-scale mentoring programs.

  • Leadership Marketplace - Pre-designed, expert-designed learning paths.

  • Path Builder - Customizable company-specific learning paths.

 

Originally, Everwise gained recognition through its Managed Mentoring, a bespoke program administered via proprietary software. Although this program established Everwise as mentoring experts, it was challenging to scale. To increase market share, there was a need to develop and sell more versatile software solutions.

 

Everwise buyers and users

Everwise customers and users are different people in an organization.

  • Customer Buyers - HR stakeholders in large corporations.

  • Users - Employees (end-users) and HR program managers (admin users).

Managed mentoring insight

While customers valued the program's outcomes, its cost of $1,800 per mentee was prohibitive for large populations within their companies.

​

Feedback indicated a demand for scalable, cost-effective, self-managed mentoring solutions. Customers wanted:

  1. To run their own mentoring programs at scale

  2. A lower price point

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2. Problem

Everwise’s software was limited to supporting only the proprietary managed mentoring program. It lacked the flexibility to accommodate various matching criteria and program durations that differed from the existing model.

3. Hypothesis

By developing software capable of supporting diverse mentoring programs, criteria, and durations, Everwise could cater to both premium and self-managed mentoring needs.

4. Solution

We decided to build comprehensive mentoring software in phases, using iterative design and customer feedback for continuous improvement.

Leveraging the design system I had built for the Everwise product, iterations could be more seamlessly put together and revised.

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Methodology for phased approach:

  • Sold ahead - Created Figma prototype demos to gauge customer interest and gather input.

  • Built - Developed key features in production to support real customer needs as we closed deals.

  • Got feedback - Gathered feedback, then updated the demo and prioritized features for production.

Phase 1

To sell ahead we first needed to create a demo that took learnings from Managed Mentoring, previous customer feedback, and competitor offerings:

  1. Show different matching scenarios to support various types of mentoring programs

  2. Clearly represent stages of the mentoring process

  3. Demonstrate effective and easy-to-use admin matching tools

 

Sold ahead​

  • Demoed three matching scenarios, but initial interest was only around having the admin making the final match decision

  • Learned all customers needed strong ROI metrics to report up to their superiors Needed an escalation system for flagging non-responsive or unhappy participants

  • Needed an escalation system for flagging non-responsive or unhappy participants

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Built

  • Focused on creating a match tool that supported the admin making the final match decision with back-end configuration done by the Services team to create the program, modify matching criteria and timing

  • Reporting dashboard showing rolled up ROI, sentiment, and program quality data along with the individual survey reports

  • Escalation system for flagging non-responsive or unhappy participants with customizable email templates to re-engage participants

Got feedback

  • Customers needed to run sets of cohorts through a program

  • They needed a shared mentor pool for all cohorts within a program

Phase 2

Now, we had real customers using our mentoring software as we were continuing to demo.

 

Existing customers needed:

  1. Cohorts

  2. Shared mentor pools

 

Potential customers were interested in the 2 matching scenarios we were already demoing, but wanted to see:

  1. Group mentoring

  2. Situational mentoring

 

Sold ahead​

  • After we built admin matching, customers in our pipeline were interested in other matching scenarios:

    • Self-matching 

    • Mentee preference

    • Group mentoring

    • Situational mentoring

  • Potential customers confirmed the need for separate cohorts within programs and shared mentor pools

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Built

  • Focused on building out two matching scenarios that most customers wanted

    • Self-matching 

    • Mentee preference
       

  • We created cohorts within a program:

    • Program = program plan and matching criteria

    • Cohort = a group of participants going through the program at a specific time together
       

  • Created a shared pool of mentors that can be matched to mentees in any cohort

Got feedback

  • Potential and existing customers wanted to setup programs themselves through the software without the need of our Services team
     

  • Existing customers needed to see individual user profiles

    • Showing individual mentorship progress and survey data

    • Showing the full scope of all learning experiences a user is engaging with on Everwise

Phase 3

We continued to acquire real customers who were using our software for a variety of mentoring programs and needed to give them more control and data about their participants.

 

We responded to their needs by prioritizing:

  1. Allowing customers to create their own programs

  2. Surfacing individual user data 

 

Sold ahead​

  • The ability for customers to create their own programs

  • A way to access more detailed information about an individual user:

    • Individual mentorship progress and survey data

    • All programs and paths a specific user is part of and their individual progress in them

    • User profile info and detailed history of all activity on the site

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Built

  • A way for customers to create mentoring programs themselves through a simple step-by-step process
     

  • A user panel detailing the user’s engagement on Everwise 

    • Mentorship program and survey responses

    • All the user’s progress across the platform

    • Profile information and history of platform activity
       

  • ​Progress reports to show how individuals are doing and how the overall cohort is tracking

Got feedback

At the time of writing this case study, we recently released the new features and are currently waiting for feedback to prioritize our next set of features.

5. Outcome

As of May 2019, the percentage of revenue from software sales increased dramatically from 33% to 70% reflecting the successful implementation and market acceptance of the new mentoring software.

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