Joydrive

Going from concept to Super Bowl Sunday

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Challenge

Validate business model

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Solution

Research & Strategic Insights, Design Sprint, User Research, MVP, Phoenix, Elixir,

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Outcome

First MVP online within 6 weeks
Business model proved through MVP
Platform and features expanded

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Screenshot of the Joydrive homescreen with the heading "Buy a new car online with home delivery."

Who is Joydrive?

Joydrive reduces the stress of purchasing a car

Joydrive's hassle-free online storefront lets customers browse multiple dealers for new and used cars, get immediate Kelly Blue Book trade-in value, and have cars picked up and delivered right to their front door all in a single app. Joydrive came to thoughtbot looking for a strategic technical partner to help them bring their product idea to life. After successfully beta testing with thoughtbot, Joydrive was ready to launch their product with a Super Bowl Commercial that announced this new service to the world.

Quote about working on Joydrive with thoughtbot

Adding thoughtbot's strategic horsepower to your company's engine can help bring your product to life.

A headshot of Hunter Gorham

Hunter Gorham
CEO/Founder Joydrive

Image of the Joydrive project

Two screenshots of the search interface for a new car, one at tablet size and one at mobile size.

Step 1:

Finding the right technology partner

CEO/Founder Hunter Gorham needed help finding the right technical partner to help him bring his business idea to life.

Hunter first learned about thoughtbot from a trusted friend, Matt Marino, Vice President at Eastdil Secured, who worked with thoughtbot on a similar project. Matt highly recommended thoughtbot’s expertise as a group that can solve difficult problems Eastdil Secured could not solve on its own.

Image of the Joydrive project

Four interface components from the Joydrive vehicle page.

Quote about working on Joydrive with thoughtbot

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.

A headshot of Hunter Gorham

Hunter Gorham
CEO/Founder Joydrive

Step 2:

De-risking high risk factors first

thoughtbot kicked off the project by facilitating a product design sprint. The first sprint focused on validating Joydrive’s business model.

Joydrive worked intensely with the thoughtbot team to help them focus, prioritize, identify the highest risk problems, and determine the best place to start in order to de-risk and validate their business idea faster.

thoughtbot’s biggest questions were related to getting the team up to speed with a shared understanding of the risk factors involved when entering this high hurdle marketplace. What factors go into making a car buying decision? What’s actually happening when a dealer runs back and forth to talk to the Finance department? What information does a customer need before they buy a car? How will customers feel confident they are getting a good deal and not scammed by a used car salesman?

thoughtbot reviewed piles of research, interviewed experts, whiteboarded data-models, and learned about everything from insurance practices to warehouse costs to financing.

We pared down all of the pie-in-the-sky ideas to figure out how we could deliver value as quickly as possible and had an MVP online within 6 weeks. That allowed us to gain some clarity in our roadmap, building out based on real needs to minimize risk and assumptions.

Image of the Joydrive project

Three photos of Joydrive customers holding up signs for Joydrive in front of their new cars

Quote about working on Joydrive with thoughtbot

One of the best parts of working with thoughtbot was being able to work closely with the team. Faster ideas - a lot of consulting - tons of collaboration

A headshot of Hunter Gorham

Hunter Gorham
CEO/Founder Joydrive

Step 3:

Ongoing Iterative design and thoughtbot as acting CTO

thoughtbot’s development expertise allowed us to become Joydrive’s CTO partner, helping them make decisions about technology stack, hosting, and deployment.

With a talented technical team on hand, Joydrive was able to tackle complex technical problems that arose from testing that would otherwise cause the product to fail. For instance, once the MVP was in the hand of real users we learned that trade-ins were the highest priority for customers to make purchasing decisions, and we needed to solve for that first.

After a series of iterations, the MVP had proven successful and customers were actively purchasing cars through the application. Joydrive was now ready to scale and bring on more dealers.

Image of Joydrive interface

A screenshot of the Joydrive searching for cars interface showing a sidebar with filters and a grid view of cars

Quote about working on Joydrive with thoughtbot

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

A headshot of Hunter Gorham

Hunter Gorham
CEO/Founder Joydrive

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