From concept to Super Bowl Sunday
- Client
Joydrive
- Services
Research & Strategic Insights, Design Sprint, User Research, MVP, Phoenix, Elixir
- Description
Partnered with Joydrive from concept to launch, designing and building their online car-buying platform MVP in 6 weeks and serving as acting CTO through their Super Bowl commercial.
How do you go from concept to customers in weeks, not years?
Hunter Gorham had a vision: make buying a car as easy as ordering a pizza. No dealership visits. No haggling. No stress.
Just one problem - he needed a technical partner who could validate the idea, build it quickly, and help him scale without the typical startup waste.
We had a good sense of the business model and we knew our storefront was going to be a website. I was not a tech person and design and development were going to be a key part of building the business. We considered every kind of partner—from big consultancies like Accenture to very small operations. We wanted the best of both.
From de-risking and MVP to scaling with confidence
We started by running a product design sprint to validate the business model before writing a single line of code. We interviewed experts, mapped the customer journey, and identified the highest-risk assumptions.
Within 6 weeks, we built and shipped an MVP; a functional platform that let customers browse inventory, get trade-in values, and schedule home delivery. This gave Joydrive real users, real transactions and real validation.
After releasing the MVP we acted as Joydrive’s CTO partner, helping them make critical decisions about technology, prioritizing features based on user feedback, and onboarding new dealers.
Working with thoughtbot we have total confidence there is nothing technical we can’t solve with the extra bonus of having a team that can help us make better decisions and move faster
Joydrive launched with a Super Bowl commercial
After an intense six months, Joydrive had their national launch during the Super Bowl and were featured in publications like Forbes, Tech Crunch and GeekWire.
