LAUNCHctrl UI/UX
LAUNCHctrl is revolutionizing business management by centralizing project management, CRM, calendar, chat, and future hiring functions in an all-in-one productivity app.
Project Details
Jan 2023 – Feb 2024
(Contract)
Contributions
UI/UX Design (0-1)
Product Management
Team
Matt Blais, Sarah Page, Larry Conly, Teodoro Gomez Llanos, Inna Orlova, Rohan Morris
The website landing page was developed to brew excitement around the product and collect leads to contact when the beta version is launched.
CONTEXT
Hyper-fragmentation, high costs, and low employee software adoption lead to a clear market opportunity.
In the ever-evolving landscape of work, our mindset has undergone a radical transformation, but let's be real—our work methods? Not so much. Right now, running a company feels like subscribing to a buffet of SaaS products. Your data? It's doing a wild dance across a gazillion apps, yet not one platform can be the all-in-one business maestro.
Picture this: founders and small business dynamos juggling not just overlapping SaaS subscriptions, but also throwing in extra integrations just to corral their data under one digital roof. Sure, these subscriptions might seem budget-friendly individually, but when they gang up, they can seriously mess with a business's financial Zen.
Now, beyond the dollars and cents, imagine the chaos of multiple knowledge hubs, data bouncing around like a pinball, wreaking havoc on productivity and turning workplaces into stress zones.
Enough of the madness! There's a slicker way to roll. The antidote to this subscription overload is a one-stop-shop data powerhouse that does it all. Drumroll, please—enter LAUNCHctrl. It's time to streamline, simplify, and take back control.
PROJECT GOALS
Some lofty challenges to tackle.
The team had two big objectives when diving into crafting this software, zeroing in on the headaches haunting startups and small businesses:
Dream up a product that requires only a single SaaS subscription to successfully and effectively orchestrate an entire business.
Shake up the status quo with a fresh take on how businesses operate, conjuring a seamless flow for all the vital processes.
One of Matt and Sarah’s early FigJam brainstorm session with notes for each product module.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
To succeed, it has to be different—from the start.
We've all danced with our fair share of task managers, CRM tools, and those so-called "all-in-one" apps in our work escapades. Reality check: none of them actually “work.” Clunky integrations often crash the party.
The team decided that to achieve the intended vision, this product would have to be built differently—from the ground-up—to create a truly integrated data platform to help users finally take control of their work.
So, after some initial brainstorm sessions and analysis of the competitive market landscape, a target audience was defined for the beta product. The product would be built with early stage start-up founders in mind. Very meta ;)
Onward from there, the team spent many sessions iterating on a product roadmap—deciding to launch an MVP with three “can’t live without” modules: CRM, task manager, and calendar. Initial design concepts for the beta product created by Sarah are shared within this case study.
The main screen for the Contacts module shows a list of all the user’s contacts with a quick way to access the record details.
DESIGN DIRECTION
Make it so simple that people actually use it.
Sarah lead the product design efforts for LAUNCHctrl and was responsible for the look and feel of the app. The intention for the interface is that it is so simple, clean, clear, and intuitive, that it fades into the background, allowing users to focus solely on the work they need to get done.
The backend data platform was architected in an innovative manner, allowing for ultimate flexibility in use. The interface design is intended to be just as free for users to choose how to best use the software for their specific needs.
Every design decision was made with this philosophy in mind—guiding the placement of elements, colors, fonts, and interactions throughout the app.
KEY LEARNINGS
We just didn’t have the resources to move fast enough to product launch :(
In February 2023, LAUNCHctrl unfortunately ceased its operations. Looking back, there were a few reasons why this had to happen.
In the previous month, Notion, arguably our closest competitor, made two product announcements which would essentially replicate the product we’re building.
A fully-integrated calendar module
A recent acquisition of Skiff (an email, cloud, and document platform focused of privacy and security)
We all knew that adoption and development of a product like LAUNCHctrl would be an uphill climb, but we were confident that our unique value proposition of combining these critical operational workflows in one package would sufficiently differentiate ourselves and provide an avenue for success. Notion’s recent movements completely encroach on our potential market share.
These factors alone already create an exceedingly challenging path forward. However, when combined with the current state of the economy and the VC ecosystem, the situation was dire, and all team members are now pursuing other projects with their talents.
“... As a designer, Sarah has a remarkable ability to produce highly specific and on-target designs from vague and sometimes incomplete requirements and is able to design highly compelling, refined, and engaging user interfaces. ...She is incredibly smart, has a keen eye for marrying design and use cases, and is exceedingly comfortable discussing and analyzing the intersection of product and business both at a high level and at specific detail. Her ability to develop, present, and defend a highly informed product functionality argument is top notch. Sarah consistently has outsized impact - her diverse skillset matched with her great efficiency easily accounts for several team members. ”