Symba: Remote work Management Platform

How might we ignite the remote work revolution?

Role: Design Strategist

Time: 3 months

Summary

Symba is a leading remote internship management platform that helps companies find and manage top talent from anywhere in the world.

I had been working with Symba in an advisory role for over 2 years when the Covid-19 pandemic forced thousands of internship programs to either cancel or take their internships remote. Symba knew the critically important role it could play in this difficult time to help companies save their internship programs.

To address the new demand for remote internships, the founders engaged me to help improve their product offering. I led a redesign effort that included dozens of customer interviews and rapid design iterations that ultimately led to the new Symba 2.0 platform. The new platform was simple, flexible and powerful enough to enable a diverse set of companies to host successful remote internships.

The redesign was a huge success and led Symba’s revenue to grow by over 10X in two months. With the new product, Symba was able to improve their customer close rate by over 220% and bring on exciting new customers like Robinhood, Chewy and CBSinteractive.

The new redesign comes in a rapid stage of growth for the company, and has helped the founders close a seed round at a $4 million dollar valuation. Symba’s platform has also recently been featured on the Washington Post and TechCrunch and the company has been named by Forbes as a leader in the remote work revolution.

Challenge

Companies struggle to design and manage internship experiences and use up to 8 platforms to host interns. The challenge is further compounded when the internship is remote. In an effort to make internships more accessible and effective Symba created a product that brought all the requirements for a successful internship together in one virtual location.

However Symba 1.0 lacked a clear product strategy, critical features and an intuitive user interface. As a result many potential customers were making the decision to not purchase the platform and those who did felt that on-boarding and adoption was proving to be challenging. Symba knew it needed to resolve these issues to take full advantage of the new demand for remote internships.

Solution

I brought product domain expertise to help lead Symba through rapid customer-led product redesign. I created an overarching product strategy that was grounded in customer research and built a new product experience and feature set from the ground up. Symba 2.0 is a thoughtfully crafted platform meant to provide critical functions that would optimize the remote experience for interns and ease the pain companies have in managing their interns. It also focuses on simplicity and ease of use so that customers and interns can pick it up without any training or expertise.

By listening to what customers needed most I was able to provide Symba with a reimagined tool that helped them expand their customer base, make their current customers happy and lean further into their role as an innovator in remote work.

Customer Research & Insights

User feedback and discovery was essential to the success of the project. I spent 4 weeks conducting research with a variety of participants, including interns managers and interns.

RESEARCH METHODS

7 user interviews & journey mapping sessions (4 interns, 3 intern managers)
4 usability testing sessions (2 interns, 1 intern manager, 1 admin)
1 focus group & co-creation session (5 interns)

KEY INSIGHTS

Too many tools: Internship managers use up to 8 tools to manage internships which requires frequent context switching and added vendor costs and management time
Lack of structure: Interns needed clear instructions on what their projects were, and the actions they would need to take to complete projects
Lack of community: Interns felt it was challenging to identify a sense of community in a remote internship, and didn’t know where they could go to find basic info or shared connections with other interns
Feedback Gap: Interns need consistent feedback both formally and informally, and there is inconsistency in how intern managers provide that feedback.

Screenshot of a recorded research session (used with participant approval)

Product Strategy

From the research I was able to develop a 5 part product and internship management strategy that would serve as the guiding light for the product redesign. The strategy included:

Set expectations on how a remote internship is different across all stakeholders
Establish a clear structure for the internship and project experiences
Create a support system for interns so they always know where to turn for help
Make it a fun & social experience for interns, even if the program is remote
Make it no work for intern managers to complete all internship management related tasks without ever having to create an account or log into Symba

Design Principles Mapped to Product Strategy

Key principle: Make it a one-stop shop

To enable a clear structure to the internship, Symba is designed as a launch pad for interns to find required resources, see their projects and deliverables, contact their peers and managers and get feedback on their performance.

Launchpad gives an overview of the internship program and provides access to all essential resources that will be required during the internship.

From the project board, interns can see the details of each projects, important deadlines, resources and upload all deliverables required for the project.

Key principle: Create a sense of community

The community tab is designed for interns to be able to see everyone in their class and quickly identify any shared connections. It also serves as a place where interns can engage with each other in online activities.

The community tab allows interns to see and engage with their peers.

The profile allows the intern to personalize their Symba presence.

Key principle: Focus on continuous learning and improvement

Interns can see both formal and informal feedback from everyone they work with during their internship, and none of these individuals need to create a Symba to leave feedback, all they need to do is send an email and Symba does the work for them. In addition, companies can add in curriculum and training videos for interns to watch throughout their program.

Results

Symba is leading the remote work revolution by making critical early career opportunities more accessible to a wider range of people from all over the world. It’s also allowing companies to pick the best talent, regardless of geographic location. I was able to help Symba unlock its vision by listening to the needs of customers and interns and creating a tool designed to meet those needs. The early results of Symba 2.0 have been incredible, they include:

10X in two months revenue growth in two months
220% increase in customer close rate
+2 point increase in NPS score (from 7.5 -> 9.5)
A $1.5 million dollar seed investment round for the company
Press on the company product and vision in Forbes, Washington Post and TechCrunch