Driving social growth through a next-generation social platform

1 Brave Friend is a social growth startup dedicated to changing the way we become a more compassionate, inclusive and progressive society. Paul, the founder of 1 Brave Friend, had noticed a gap in social media and how products like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are being used to learn about activism and social change. 1 Brave Friend would become a space that would improve peoples’ way of learning about creating a socially just society.
Paul was seeking investment to bring his vision to life, and this is where Inktrap stepped in. By hosting a remote two-week design sprint, we explored how the product would work based on user research and created a prototype to show potential investors and co-founders.

Our priority was to find out the struggles our target users encounter in existing social media products, and any friction encountered when learning about race, sexuality and gender. We conducted our international research remotely through video calls and using an online whiteboard tool. By conducting this research, we validated our assumptions of the user’s pain points and needs. We were also able to gain an insight into our user's challenges that they faced, through the method of affinity mapping the themes.

From these observations, we were able to form connections and start defining features, allowing us to create wireframes for the product. We understood that mobile created a low barrier to entry for our users; which is why we decided to design for mobile. We ran a usability study with previous interview participants and then moved on to brand design. Once we had formed an identity, we focused on creating a cohesive UI style that we rolled out across the wireframes to produce a high-fidelity prototype that could be used in product pitches and for investment applications.

Our prototype demonstrated 1 Brave Friend's proposed features and the simplicity of the user flow, supporting the startup in seeking investment. Our simple—yet effective—brand identity helped illustrate how the product could exist in reality for investors, without needing much imagination on their part.

By utilising our tried and tested two-week sprint approach, we quickly and efficiently collected research and implemented it with design to form an interactive prototype. Our process helped Paul embark 1 Brave Friend on its journey to securing an interview with Bethnal Green Ventures; Europe’s leading early-stage 'tech for good' VC.