The problem
Advisory.Works has long partnered with NZ businesses to coach them through the points where good operators are held back by the art of running a business itself. Its model had a limit. A business came with a particular need, engaged Advisory.Works until it had learnt and embedded what it needed, then wound down the engagement. Advisory.Works wanted something of ongoing value that kept the client close for future needs.
There was a wider problem too. Approximately 3% of NZ businesses have a business coach, far fewer than could benefit from some form of coaching support.
What we built
Beyond was the brainchild of Advisory.Works CEO Logan Wedgwood. The platform digitises the firm's consulting processes, captures the outputs of consultants' work with clients, helps teams have courageous conversations when reviewing performance and runs the cycles of meetings that effective execution depends on.
Design was a dynamic exchange. Logan fired ideas, product suggestions and documents of existing consulting processes at John Halvorsen-Jones at Applicable, who interpreted, reflected back, wireframed and fine-tuned until the vision and the designed product came together into an MVP. Wider stakeholder feedback was taken into the design, on the understanding that most real user feedback only arrives once people start using a product in anger.
The build was more collaborative than usual. Advisory.Works' own experienced architect led the Microsoft .NET server-side work for the MVP. Applicable built the React front-end and provided overall project management, then in the iterating phase added a server-side developer under that leadership and a project lead, Alex Chang, who improved the user experience while working through early adopter feedback.
The result
The platform has gone a long way towards solving the internal problem, giving Advisory.Works an ongoing relationship with clients after an engagement ends. Paired with some human induction and consulting, it also gives tools of value to the 97% of the market that coaching has not reached, and Advisory.Works has spun it off as a SaaS product in its own right.
Beyond reached version 2.x with 3.0 in view, and it hit the hardest phase of any product: success, where many voices bring many requests and scalability, security, onboarding and support all need to grow at once. Applicable has stayed involved through every phase.
Key takeaways
- Applicable built Beyond, Advisory.Works' strategy, tracking, meetings and execution platform, from wireframes to MVP to version 2.x.
- Applicable delivered the React front-end and project management, working alongside the client's own .NET architect, then added back-end development as the platform grew.
- Beyond gives Advisory.Works an ongoing client relationship and has been spun off as a SaaS product for the businesses that coaching has not reached.
- Advisory.Works' CEO describes Applicable as ahead of timeline, under budget and transparent.
