The Crux team is incredibly proud to announce we have graduated from the LAUNCH Incubator, ran by the one and only Jason Calacanis. It was an incredible 3 months that gave us insider knowledge and resources that can’t be found anywhere else.

We’d like to share our Top 5 takeaways from the experience:

1. BRING YOUR A-GAME
The caliber of companies in the incubator is so high, that you always have to perform at the highest level. It’s a competition and you must be ready to shine above the rest. At any moment Jason or his guests ask the really tough questions, and as a founder you have to be ready for it. There’s no time for second-guessing yourself or stalling.

At first everyone is a bit nervous and excited, so some slack is allowed. But as the weeks progress, everyone really starts to become much more polished and the bar is continuously being raised. If you don’t bring your A-game everyday, it will become obvious and you’ll simply be asked to leave.

2. THE EXPERIENCE IS WORTH 10X THE INVESTMENT
Being accepted into LAUNCH gets you a cool $25,000 in exchange for a small percentage stake in the company. However, the combined value of the knowledge you receive, the access to top level investors you have during and after the incubator, and the continuous refining of your vision via storytelling is worth 10 times the investment you receive.

You would have to hire countless advisors and consultants, spend months trying to get in contact with investors and angels, continuously fail and learn from your mistakes, and read countless books on public speaking to get what we experienced in 3 months working with Jason and his team.

3. EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
When we entered the incubator we were fairly certain we had a defined vision for our company moving forward. Little did we know that Jason is excellent at capturing the essence of an idea or vision, and saying it in a way that is much better than your own. We recall many moments where incubator companies would be pitching and Jason would stop them midway to pitch the company himself. It was incredible and unexpected how well he could communicate the vision of others.

There were many unexpected moments like this, so the rule is don’t expect anything. This is not your typical incubator!

4. BECOME A GREAT STORYTELLER
Week after week, Jason emphasized the importance of founders having outstanding storytelling abilities. We didn’t see it at first, but we soon realized that storytelling becomes the medium by which founders can make anything happen. It helps to convey your grand vision to investors, it enables you to recap how you’ve achieved your success and traction to the press, and makes it plain simple to tell your users/customers what your product does and why they need it.

5. COME PREPARED TO STUDY AND LEARN
Be prepared to learn a lot from some amazing people. Throughout the experience we were taught new skills that we were able to implement almost immediately into the company. Topics that stood out to us include growth marketing, user testing, fundraising, user support, and product design.

What was really interesting is the fact that we learned just as much from our fellow founders participating in the incubator. The collaborative environment encouraged us to build deep relationships with the other founders, share our resources, and support each other in ways that went above and beyond the expected.

After the countless hours rehearsing our pitch, thousands of miles traveled back and fourth from LA to SF every week, and the once-in-a-lifetime experience we got at the LAUNCH Incubator, the journey has just begun for us.

Watch out for Crux!

There we were, sitting at Apple headquarters pitching our product to an exec in hopes of being featured in the App Store. We knew the problem we were solving was that groups currently lack tools built for communicating effectively and organizing their critical information, we knew the solution was to offer a solution that would efficiently organize messages and information for groups, we knew how we were going to scale and why we needed Apple as a partner. With Crux in hand ready to go, Jordan, my co-founder and CMO, and I went into the meeting with confidence that we had an app that was ready for prime time.

We started with the formalities of a typical meeting, but quickly moved to an open discussion on the startup culture, life at Apple, our personal story as founders and of course the product demo. Everything was going better than expected, as the exec clearly understood the problem we were tackling and complimented us on our execution of the solution. But then he hit us with a direct and honest question:

“How are new users going to know exactly how to use your product for the first time?”

Blindsided

The question posed to us was one of those simple questions you think you already know because you’ve been working so hard for the past 12 months building your product, but when asked by someone with clear experience and clout, you freeze up like a video endlessly buffering. We realized at that moment that we had not done a good enough job with user onboarding.

We had spent so much time building the product to be beautiful, reliable and valuable to groups around the world. We assumed users would naturally learn how to use the app through viewing the walkthroughs and following the coach marks, but we didn’t count on the fact that most users skipped through them. The simple and direct question posed by the Apple exec led us to realize we had a big hole in our product. We needed to create a new app experience that taught users how the app worked by playing into the user’s own curiosity and intuition.

An opportunity

We left the meeting that day on a high note though. We took away specific action items to work on in order to be considered by Apple, and had a new opportunity to make our product even better. We were very fortunate to have been invited to speak with the exec in the first place, so we took his advice to heart and got started right away.

Designing a solution

We knew we had to move fast in order to climb this mountain. Time was not on our side, as the solution was to radically change our user flow from the beginning. Since our solution consisted of reframing our user flow, we had to come up with a creative way to beat the race against the clock. At this point, we were looking at taking the entire app apart, start to finish, and rework the user flow, which could easily take 2–3 months.

We needed a structured method to solving this problem. We had to dig deep through our professional experiences to find a pathway to getting the best possible solution in the shortest amount of time.

Rapid prototyping

A week before our meeting with Apple, Jordan and I had graduated from the Hive Global Leaders Program. Hive is a leadership conference, founded by one of our proud investors, Ryan Allis. It brings together a network of the world’s top leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators that are collectively making the world a better place by their positive, impactful work. Throughout the three-day conference, a series of guest speakers put us through life changing workshops, talked about their incredible life journeys, and guided us in aligning our life’s purpose with our company’s mission. It was pretty incredible stuff and I highly recommend anyone reading this post to attend the conference.

The conference started with a bang, leading with co-founder of Google X, Tom Chi. He’s famously known for his Rapid Prototyping technique. Rapid prototyping is about finding the best and quickest way to an experience. Tom Chi coined the phase as “Maximizing the rate of learning by minimizing the time to try ideas.” One of the key takeaways was the interaction between Home Teams and Away Teams. Home teams serve to quickly design and update products based upon the user/customer feedback from Away teams in the field.

We took our new skill in rapid prototyping and applied this technique in creating our new user onboarding experience. The day before we set up our teams, we internally designed various onboarding flow options. The biggest challenge we faced was the fact that users did not understand how to fully take advantage of the main value proposition that Crux offers, which is organizing a group’s conversations and information. Coach marks were not enough. The key was to get a new group set up properly with the right topics in place. Without the group topics, they would not receive the full value that Crux had to offer.

Ideas into action

Each member of the team participated in 10-minute time-blocks sketching and drawing potential new screens and flows, totaling 2 hours. After each 10 minute block, we would give feedback to each other in 4 minute intervals. We repeated this cycle, until we were completely satisfied with our collective design to give to our Away team. Our Away team consisted of 10 Student Brand Advocates at various campuses.

Throughout the day, the team members talked to students in high traffic areas to ensure they received as much feedback as possible. They showcased our user flow prototype through a tool called Verifyapp. It allowed us to quickly gain insight regarding where users would click, what flows they took, and if the new proposed flow was optimal. Qualitative feedback was being sent directly to us via a private group in Crux.

The final resolution came in the form of guiding a new group to getting set up properly. We researched the types of groups that would appeal to Crux, and gathered insight into what topics those groups would relate to. Instead of having the group creator think of the topics that are relevant to the group (which isn’t as easy as you might think), the app itself would recommend topics based on various types of groups. Such a simple solution that we never considered until it became clear it was what was missing all along.

The results

By using the rapid prototyping approach, we received more feedback in 5 hours than we ever did. 94% of the data showed that users truly understood our UVP within seconds of setting up their group on Crux. 90% of students surveyed said that they would recommend Crux to their friends on campus, partly because of the new flow. We also received great feedback that we weren’t expecting. Suggestions such as increasing the speed of loading messages, to adding more topic recommendations and group types.

After a few internal design iterations, we had a beautiful experience that was ready to be built by our engineering team. In 2 days and with countless cups of coffee, we had found the right solution. Simply guiding a new group through the setup process radically increased the success of onboarding them into a thriving community on Crux.

You can download Crux on the App Store or Google Play.

All too often we go about our path being exposed to others who are willing to help us in the pursuit of our dreams, yet we sometimes seem to forget about the individual contributions they had on our achievements.

As a startup co-founder, I’ve come across countless people that have given up their time and energy for us. Whether it was just 10 seconds of their time for a quick survey question, or over a year of work as an advisor, their support has allowed us to move forward toward our vision. Even though both of these examples manifested contrasting time spans, their contributions were part of the greater collective effort that I am forever grateful for.

What’s interesting is that the vast majority of these people did not expecting anything in return for their help. They did it simply out of the goodness of their heart, and I think that speaks volumes about the human spirit. People genuinely want to do good things for others, and when presented with an opportunity to help they accept without question. As we become aware of how others have helped us in our lifetime, our instinct takes over we offer help when opportunities arise.

Yet one tends to get caught up in the day to day activities, the achievements and celebrations, and forgets to stop and reflect on those who have helped along the way. So this my first post as co-founder of Crux, I want to stop and thank those who’ve helped us achieve so much.

Random Strangers

At this point we’ve probably stopped and asked hundreds of people what seemed to them like strange and random questions. But behind the scenes their answers and feedback gave us invaluable insight that helped spark the idea and vision behind Crux. It’s because of you that we realized we had found a problem worth solving.

Beta testers

To all the people that believed in us and in our product. You have helped shape the product to what it is today and what it will be in the future. Your insight has been pivotal in figuring out what works, what should go, and what should change. Because of you we are better prepared to build a product that truly adds value to people’s lives and solves the right problems.

Friends and Family

Your unconditional support has been essential to getting through the tough times. The startup life is a tough one. Long nights were the norm, rejection was at every corner, and defeatism would creep up occasionally. If is wasn’t for your unwavering encouragement, we would have quit long ago. You gave us the strength to overcome our perceived limits and advance forward without fear.

Advisors

To our advisors we truly thank you for trusting us and for giving us your time and resources in order to lead us in the right direction. We know you had the choice to go with any other startup in Silicon Valley, yet you chose us. Here came these two guys from LA with an idea and a passion to succeed, and you believed in us. We realize you’re putting your name on the line for us, and we won’t let you down.

Colleagues

To my colleagues, the Crux Crew as we’re know, I thank you for giving up precious time with your family and friends in order to advance Crux forward towards our common goals. Together we commanded control of our destinies and are now as close as we’ve ever been to starting a new chapter in our lives. It’s not easy to comitt to something when you aren’t assured of its success, but you took the risk anyways. Your dedication, courage and passion has not gone unnoticed, and I am fortunate to be a part of your team.

…thank you.