Sky’s the Limit is a nonprofit organization that empowers aspiring entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities by providing the resources, mentorship, and support needed to build successful businesses in a nurturing environment.
One of the platform’s key features is its ability to match early-stage entrepreneurs with experienced mentors. These personalized matches guide entrepreneurs through the complexities of business development, offering tailored advice to address their unique challenges and help them gain the skills and confidence to grow.
In addition to mentorship, Sky’s the Limit provides resources, networking tools, opportunities to pitch ideas, and access to financial support, transforming ideas into sustainable businesses. Since its founding, the platform has expanded to support over 60,000 entrepreneurs in 100 countries.
Sky’s the Limit (STL) set out to rebrand their platform, focusing on delivering a modern, user-friendly experience. However, as the project progressed, it became clear that there wasn’t a clear timeline for completion, and the STL team recognized a need for more structured processes and a strategic plan for moving forward.
From a design standpoint, the platform was struggling with usability issues. Confusing navigation, inconsistent features, and a complex onboarding process made it difficult for new users to engage, stalling the growth of STL’s vibrant community. Additionally, with two distinct user types—entrepreneurs and mentors—the design had to accommodate the unique needs of both groups, adding further complexity to the overall user experience.
On the development side, the STL team was building a cross-platform application using a single React Native codebase with a focus on the web platform. While this helped move the web version forward, the mobile experience suffered, with performance, UX, and UI issues that led to a suboptimal experience for users.
Recognizing that they needed additional support to bring their vision to life, Sky’s the Limit collaborated with Yeti for a comprehensive audit of their designs and technology. The goal was clear: assess the current state of the platform, develop a strategic plan, and get STL’s rebranded platform launched successfully.
Our journey with Sky’s the Limit began with a comprehensive audit of the platform’s existing designs. We meticulously examined each screen, pinpointing design flaws and usability challenges
To present our findings to the STL team, we compiled a prioritized list of essential changes and a color-coded map illustrating the impact and effort of each task. This thorough analysis not only highlighted critical areas for improvement but also provided a clear roadmap for transforming the user experience and propelling the rebranding effort forward.
Based on this audit, we identified 4 key areas needing improvement, and outlined how enhancing these elements would significantly elevate the overall user experience.
Our development team started by reviewing the high-impact changes identified in the design audit, assigning estimated effort scores to help the STL development team prioritize effectively.
Next, we conducted a thorough audit of both the front and backend of Sky’s the Limit’s platform, highlighting key issues and challenges. Based on our findings, we provided STL with a detailed project plan and roadmap, outlining a prioritized list of features and technical tasks required to bring the application to launch.
This plan included effort estimates for each task, along with strategies to balance STL’s development capacity, Yeti’s expertise, and STL’s budget.
To ensure Sky’s the Limit’s development team could operate more efficiently and cohesively, we conducted a comprehensive audit of their processes. Based on our findings, we recommended a range of improvements designed to foster better collaboration, clarify individual responsibilities, and streamline workflows. These included strategies for producing more accurate work estimates, enhancing the clarity of tasks, improving the testing process to catch bugs earlier, and boosting the effectiveness of their meetings. By adopting these recommendations, STL’s team could better align efforts and increase overall productivity.
With a clear roadmap and project plan in place, it was time to move forward with the rebranding process. Yeti’s lead product designer spearheaded this effort, picking up the rebrand designs that had been in progress, addressing the UI and UX issues identified during our audit.
We then worked through the audit list with the goal of improving the platform’s overall user experience. This included streamlining navigation to create a more cohesive and intuitive platform, adding tooltips to guide users through complex areas, and enhancing transparency by providing educational content on data usage and platform features. Beyond these major improvements, we revamped the entire platform’s design, optimizing functionality and delivering a more seamless, user-friendly experience.
Next, we moved forward with designing the screens for the new features Sky’s the Limit aimed to introduce. We began by developing a robust calendar feature to enhance user engagement and organization. This feature allows users to manage both the events they’ve created and those they’ve been invited to. It includes functionalities such as viewing and scheduling meetings, creating new events, and setting personal availability for meetings, providing users with a seamless and intuitive way to manage their time and commitments directly within the platform.
We also designed a marketplace feature where entrepreneurs on the platform can showcase their shops and products, allowing users to support each other within the community. Each entrepreneur can create a personalized page for their shop, making it easy for others to browse their offerings and go directly to the company’s website to make a purchase. This feature strengthens community ties and fosters collaboration among entrepreneurs.
On the development side, Sky’s the Limit’s team moved forward with implementing the design changes and new features being created while simultaneously addressing the technical issues uncovered during the development audit.
Throughout this process, Yeti’s developer remained fully integrated with STL's team, offering ongoing guidance, process improvements, bug fixes, and code reviews, while additionally handling the more complex development tasks that arose, including resolving significant issues with the iOS and Android apps, ensuring their successful launch on the respective app stores.
Sky’s the Limit successfully launched their redesigned platform on both mobile and web, featuring sleek new functionalities and an optimized UI/UX!
A standout achievement was the transformation of the onboarding process, which dramatically doubled completed user sign-ups from 34% to 71% within just one month.
Moreover, our mentorship of STL’s development team laid the foundation for ongoing success. With an enhanced development process that includes strategic project planning, roadmaps, improved testing protocols, and streamlined meetings, the STL team is now well-prepared for future builds and launches.
We also facilitated crucial improvements to the app architecture, reducing potential bugs while boosting long-term efficiency, ensuring the platform's health for years to come.
Our partnership with Sky’s the Limit continues as we design innovative features and provide ongoing development support. Stay tuned for exciting updates!
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