Burst App: For the moments you're bursting to share.
Year: 2016, 2017
Startup: Burst App (BETA)
Methods: PoC, Prototypes, User Testing, Rapid UX iteration, MVP build, Ecosystem Design, Community Building, BETA launch, VC pitches.
Tech Stack: Invision, UserTesting, LookBack.io, Twilio, iOS TestFlight, Swift, JavaScript WebView, Elastic Beanstalk, Node.js, PHP
Outcome: Pitched at Balderton Capital, Europe's largest Series A investor.
Story
Humanity has never had as many modes of communication as it has today. And yet, we are faced by a loneliness epidemic. Whilst we are flooded by forms of social media, many of them aren't all that social. For some, it's because they are passive (we talk to 'The Network', and not directly to each other), and in other cases they are asynchronous (we send 'DMs' that are staggered back and forth at different times). We wanted to develop an ephemeral interaction app; one that captured the buzz and excitement of real time, real people sharing, without being overly intrusive on someone's time. For moments you really want to share. It was called, Burst.
Approach
Europe has never launched a major social platform, so we knew this would be no mean feat. It began with some initial concept validation, using a lofi UI/UX build on InVision to demonstrate the front-end (and planned future functionality) to 40+ deep dive user testers. Herein, it was possible to quickly prioritise a number of potential product features without undergoing live development on each. The idea took hold as a reinvention of the call, where your real friends (and their personalities) popped out of every crevice. Users loved the poppy look & feel, and the notion of being able to share short, sharp moments. Namely, 30-60" shared interactions called "Bursts".
We subsequently built out a functional MVP of the product, which was put live under a closed BETA on iOS TestFlight. Key features included a 'Vidbook' made up of profile gifs, and conversation themes that would spark interactive features -- a "happy birthday" topic would release a trapdoor of balloons mid-Burst. Many other concept features were pipelined and put through early-stage testing (many leveraging use of voice AI), to ensure that the product would remain engaging and exciting for this hard to hone Gen Z audience.
Outcomes
- 57% of initial testers subscribed for future BETA programmes.
- Over 1,000 live 'Bursts' within the first 6 weeks of closed BETA launch
- Interest from high-profile media agencies about the CPX model (Cost per experience).
- Invited to pitch at a number of high profile seed VCs including Mustard Seed, Piton and Balderton Capital.