DMBA 2020 Capstone Project
by Erin Schnair, Holly McKenna, Sarah Grimm & Serena Chan
originally published to Medium
Churn:
An Expensive Business Challenge
Current feedback processes are broken. Employees don’t feel heard, and so they leave, which can cost a company twice the employee’s salary. This expensive problem lacks effective solutions.
The Solution? Feedback that Builds Trust
Fidu is a revolutionary feedback tool that helps companies retain their employees by building trust at work. According to the Harvard Business Review, “high trust organizations have 50% more productivity, and 76% more engagement.” When feedback and communication works, companies are 4.5x more likely to retain employees.
Fidu also heard this again and again from customers through a robust interview process. One manager summed it up well: “the problem isn’t sending and receiving feedback, but the lack of trust, safety, and comfort in giving constructive feedback.”
The Fidu team honed in on feedback because they uncovered this interconnected theory of change:
transformation requires trust,
feedback builds trust,
trust transforms culture,
and culture retains employees.
Fidu is a Slack-first B2B app
Fidu’s proprietary process includes a key feature that competitors miss: a digital guide for feedback sessions. The digital guide meets employees where they are already communicating — on Slack. Then, it encourages them to have a face-to-face, constructive conversation that builds trust. Fidu guides teammates through three simple steps:
Prepare with a brief individual reflection and tutorial.
Connect face to face for a guided conversation.
Reflect on their ongoing personal and professional development.
The Competition Fails to Deliver Next-Generation Solutions
The $12B performance management industry needs next generation solutions. In addition to annual reviews, Fidu offers ongoing opportunities for feedback, aligned with the 70% of companies that are moving towards more frequent check-ins. The over 50% of Americans who work remotely need new ways of communicating.
A Lean Business Model with Growth Potential
Integrating with Slack provides substantial cost savings in technical development and marketing and gives Fidu access to a growing customer base that is ideally suited to benefit from its offering.
Fidu’s B2B marketing and sales strategy leverages the Slack enterprise ecosystem and professional networking. Fidu would sell monthly and annual app subscriptions to two groups of Slack users:
HR departments at companies with >500 employees (80% of user base)
Team managers at companies with <500 employees (20% of user base)
Based on extensive revenue modeling, Fidu is projected to break even within its first year of sales and reach a healthy profit by the end of its second year. Further, Fidu’s metrics are projected to meet or supersede industry standards — for example, a 77% gross margin is expected in year 2, nearing the SaaS gold standard of 80%.
Design-Based Operations
Fidu will build and design the app following a remote and agile model with rapid iteration, aiming to launch in January 2021.
Concluding Thoughts: DMBA 2020 Venture Studio
The Fidu concept and associated business plan were developed as the capstone project by a team of MBA in Design Strategy candidates at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA during the Spring 2020 semester.
Ironically this proved a time to test out remote working processes and to innovate on collaboration tools. Learn more about how we worked together in the “Regenerative Design Process” article our team wrote.
DMBA 2020 Fidu Team
(Clockwise top left to bottom right)
Holly McKenna is a silo-breaking researcher, community-centric strategist, and radical innovator.
Sarah M. Grimm is a transformative design strategist who drives innovation through interdisciplinary systems thinking, foresight and facilitation.
Serena Chan facilitates design, business, and community to make strategic shifts toward social and environmental good.
Erin Schnair is a strategy design consultant who believes social purpose is the future of business.