- Our second venture design principle
is drive continuous engagement.
And I'll being with an example
to bring the principle to life.
Kidaptive is an education and technology startup
focused on early learning for children.
In the company's hit product Leo's Pad
the children learn skills and concepts far beyond
the basic ABCs and one, two, threes
by following along a beautifully animated storyline
in which the characters interact directly with the child
and enlist their help in solving
various puzzles and challenges.
Leo's Pad is far more advanced
than one might initially imagine.
It senses the child's skill level
and constantly adjusts the challenge level
to keep them engaged and learning.
The company's sophisticated adaptive learning platform
tracks each learner's development over time
and develops a nuanced understanding
of her progress across 75 learning dimensions.
This information not only guides
the learner's evolving curriculum and experience,
but it's also used to surface insights
to assist parents in understanding their child's progress
and supporting their learning through offline activities.
At the time that P.J. and Dylan, the founders of Kidaptive,
approached Frog they had resounding success
in engaging their most discerning customers,
the children who adore Leo's Pad,
but realized that to succeed in their mission
they needed much more engagement from the children's first
and most important teachers, their parents.
They asked us to work with them
to create an experience for the parents
that would leverage the power
of the adaptive learning platform
and the insights it generates
to support parents in engaging with their children
and to empower them to enrich their education.
This project was at the center
of a crucial pivot for the company
and it was very important that it succeed.
From the beginning it was clear to all involved
that Kidaptive was looking for more than an app,
they were looking to bring their user experience
to a completely new level.
Without this the company's plans for partnership,
growth, and fundraising might be in jeopardy.
To maximize design immersion
and knowledge transfer in both directions
our teams worked in intimate collaboration,
often co-located.
We leveraged the incredible depth of their knowledge
and research into early learning and childhood development
and carried that into our strategy and design work.
This ensured that we were making
the most of their domain expertise.
Simultaneously we transferred our design approaches
and output to them as we worked.
This ensured that the design intent was maintained
through their final implementation and into the marketplace.
And even more importantly, that the Kidaptive team
came away with important new design capabilities.
Learner Mosaic, the app we created together,
has delivered tremendous business value to Kidaptive.
It dramatically shifted the user experience
for the company's most important audience, parents.
And is intended, greatly increased their engagement.
More broadly, the app underscores the power
of the company's adaptive learning platform
and serves as an important demonstration
of Kidaptive's capabilities to the education industry.
It has led to numerous business-to-business opportunities
and has been a key component
of their subsequent fundraising and growth.
Perhaps most interestingly and importantly
the experience of the collaboration
impacted Kidaptive's understand of design
in their organization
and it's potential role in helping them
achieve their mission.
In this example I hope that you can see
how we used our second principle,
Drive continuous engagement,
to emphasize deep collaboration, transparent workflows,
and flat teams to gain efficiency, continuity,
and improved capability development across all contributors.
Together this enables the founders' mindset
of co-ownership, accountability, and emphasis on impact.