When Alex came to us looking for a solution to his problem, our first question was, why not? The scenario was complex, a half baked new brand, a post COVID world and just 3 months to launch a new product to re-ignite Gravy’s brand.
Everyone would agree this is not the best situation, and some would argue this should not be done, but we saw an opportunity to test ourselves, our team and help a client re born from the ashes as the mythical phoenix. And boy this was a joyride.
Let me tell you about Gravywork’s business, and you’ll see why we cared so much about it. Being hit by COVID pandemics, the hourly jobs in restaurants, hotels, and logistic warehouses were in deep trouble. According to different sources between 65 to 80% of temp workers had a drop in wages or were directly unemployed.
We approached this project as a do-or-die situation, looking for solutions that could be implemented quickly but at the same time could offer a great benefit to Gravy and its users. To do so, we kicked it off with a discovery workshop, where we worked together with Gravy’s staff for 2 weeks to analyse the brand, the message, voice and getting a strategic alignment towards the product roadmap.
Together we defined must-haves, value-added by each feature, and a follow-up backlog for v 2.0 and 3.0. Our proposed working process helped to align the team with a vision of possibility and a reachable north.
We also defined a technical stack that would allow us to move fast, using React-Native as our main technology to launch an app on both app stores quickly. Our strategy and design teams redefined the new brand, to make it more aesthetically pleasing, and created a system to translate it into the applications.
By working this way, we reduced duplication, rework, and improved our velocity.
We knew this was going to be a challenge from the start, and we tried to balance our love for work with rest to avoid burnout and a decline in quality. But at the same time, this challenge made the process rewarding, helped us stay in course, and make decisions faster.
Every time a feature was questioned or new scope was being added we asked ourselves, would this be so important to delay our launch? 8 of 10 times the answer was no.
Our main goal was to launch before the opening of hotels and restaurants, being there for our users to bounce back better than before. And we did it.
