In late 2017 we launched VeggieGo — a social network for vegetarians, vegans and rawtarians. It was founded by Anna-Maria Udotova, a businesswoman and an artist. She is a vegetarian and can totally relate to the problems of a contemporary city dweller, who has decided to stop eating meat in their every-day life. Her dream is to make their life more comfortable.
IN THIS CASE STUDY WE WILL SPEAK ABOUT:
- how the idea of the product emerged;
- what was included in the MVP — a minimum viable product — and what was postponed till later;
- how the visual style was found;
- what results our collaboration yielded.
«I’d like to bring more comfort to the life of people who choose to eat right»
Anna-Maria Udotova,
VeggieGo founder
Cover photo
© Pineapple Supply Co.
ABOUT THE PRODUCT IN BRIEF
VeggieGo — is a vegetarian restaurant guide and communication platform. It helps to:
- нfind and add vegetarian places to eat out;
- read and post comments;
- find friends and communicate with them via personal messages and comments.
Development time: 12 months.
Launch: december 2017 года.
AppStore rating: 4,4.
How to decide what to include in the first version of a social network?
- What is a must, and what is optional? In the case of the vegetarian community, a client pointed out the unfairness of the situation, the product was supposed to resolve. Anna-Maria is an expert and knowledge holder of what app is needed. We turned to her with the question of “What is imperative, and what is optional?”. Besides, we studied publicly available results of the research into the life of the vegetarian community.
- What is easy, and what is difficult? Two years before Anna-Maria, Maxim Zakopaylov joined Manufactura in the capacity of a technical director, bringing along a group of developers he used to work with and thus enhancing our team. Their portfolio featured launching social networks as well. So they were responding to the questions about the difficulty of implementing certain ideas.
«When a client has their own vision, it always means certain limitations and poses a challenge for the team. However, we don’t take it as a whim or a caprice. If you have the necessary skills, you can work with any limitation».
Dmitriy Sidorov,
Art Director of the project
«It was a unique experience of working with a client. Normally during phone calls, you brace yourself for an argument, but here you just tell them how you see it all and they say, «Yes, we entirely agree with you». In this case, there was complete mutual understanding with the client».
Sergey Kotsuba,
Product manager
After the name of the project was confirmed — and VeggieGo competed with such rivals as Vegovan, Get It Green and Vegatu — we embarked on the design of a logo icon. The team proposed several variants, one of which we took a liking to. It was lively and grotesque fruit standing for a mark on the map.
Anna-Maria suggested a more straightforward, comprehensible variant — ordinary, but most delicious fruit — a pineapple:
Upon the launch, the key functionality proved totally useful: users spot locations and set routes to them.
The social activity level at the start left much to be desired: users have hardly turned to the functionality of adding comments, searching for friends and communicating.
Excellent! What can we do about it?
AN UPDATE SAMPLE
Among the first updates after the MVP launch, we released onboarding, which improved the interaction level and increased engagement rates. Take a look at what was included and what results we achieved.
The outcome of the update release:
- +4% of users added personal information, which means they will be receiving useful content about new places opening in the area;
- +28% befriending increase;
- +13% bookmarking for later use;
- +14% location rating.
Moreover, the onboarding tool gives the user insight in the app’s key features and provides guidance about how to rate locations, subscribe to interesting bloggers or personalize their profile.
