We spent countless hours interviewing, observing and surveying SU stakeholders; walking through their business processes; examining their spreadsheets; studying interactions with coaches, members and admins. Our goal was to learn enough about how the business ran to hypothetically run it ourselves. After all, the software we’d be building would augment how the business operated. We often found ourselves awake at night, thinking of ways to improve existing processes.

Like good students, we listened first. SU had begun to permeate our own culture. Several team members joined their program (and are still on it to this day). We became champions for their brand and mission. What we learned was not only of a technical nature, or how the business operated, but that these guys and gals were genuinely out to improve the way the world eats. They exhibited such passion and drive toward their goals and truly valued the human connection with their members and each other. We knew that whatever we set out to build, it needed to enhance the human connection, not replace it. This became our North Star.

After SU’s previous app building experiences, we wanted to make damn sure our plan was clear. Our own processes helped as we moved into drafting a structure and making sense of our findings. Our strategy was created by first identifying the “dots,” then connecting them and mapping them out visually.

Our information architecture (IA) studies showed how we would organize data. Our approach to user experience (UX) and user roles dictated who would have access to which data when, where, and how. Our technical strategies outlined which libraries, languages, scripts, and platforms would be used to build each feature in the app; third-party integrations were vetted thoroughly. Several approaches to transitioning members and migrating data were outlined as well. We left no stone unturned.

At the end of our discovery phase, we rendered medium-fidelity wireframes to illustrate how features would work and how information would be organized in the user interface (UI). We then validated our assumptions with multiple rounds of user testing, and wrapped all of our findings into a 62-page strategy to discuss scope, timing, costs and implementation.

More than 400 hours later, by April of 2019, we had a plan. We were ready.

Our responsibility as a tech company does not stop at simply building an app. Our role is to also be educators for our clients. Stronger U was not a tech company. Their methods had been built on spreadsheets and emails. It was truly up to us to help their company transition to a place where tech became a central focus, an asset.

Throughout the app’s soft launch, we had our boots on the ground answering thousands of support tickets from members while continually training coaches and admins, but it wasn’t enough. We were all burning out from what seemed like an endless barrage of bugs and human resistance. Leadership at Stronger U reached a breaking point.

They were ready to scrap the application and revert to spreadsheets.

We had failed to transition thousands of users from one way of doing something, to another. Yet even in our darkest hour, we refused to believe this narrative.

We were convinced the application was doing more good than harm. Could these simply be growing pains? We had to know for certain before we pulled the plug.

We feverishly reviewed data, administered satisfaction surveys, and held interviews with as many users as possible. As it turned out, only a few select issues were causing the majority of pain. (Go ahead Pareto, laugh it up.) We simply lost sight of something greater. We reminded Stronger U of what we had set out to do in the beginning and showed how, for the majority of their community, it was already a reality!

Every member was in the application. Every coach was able to complete their daily tasks more efficiently than ever before. The app was working. As we shifted the narrative to bring out the positive feedback, it was more clear than ever. We had transitioned! And coaches were raving about the ease-of-use and new insight they had with their members.

Seemingly overnight, the veil was lifted. Stronger U no longer had limits to its scale.