SaaS Crypto
Talent Portal

Building a SaaS product to scale talent within blockchain ecosystems.
Market Opportunity
Allow individual blockchain ecosystems to grow their teams and talent pool, powered by our central product, via and embedded white-label version of our app.
Objectives & Goals
Rebrand the embedded portal as much as possible as a white-label client product
Recreate the experience and benefits of the HireVibes app within an iFrame embed
Business Challenges
Signed LOIs from clients, deadline looming
Technical challenges of proposed solutions
Demand for blockchain talent is fierce between ecosystems
Product Users
Admin - Leaders within Web3 ecosystems
Hirers - Mostly early stage startups
Talent - Web3 industry (mostly developers)

The Project

With a market opportunity to develop a SaaS product, we began an iterative process alongside two 2 clients to build an embedded white label SaaS version of our product on their own website.

The Target Audience

Leaders of Web3 ecosystems, the companies within their ecosystems (mostly early-stage startups), and the talent that they would attract (mostly developers).

The Goal

To re-create the experience and benefits of the HireVibes app via a branded iFrame embedded into a client's website.

My Role

Sole designer producing prototypes and first point of contact for testing with clients and gathering feedback on features. Worked alongside dev team & product manager.

The Impact

44% increase in talent pool during updates and a 3.4X increase, 6 months after launch.
The HireVibes App
HireVibes is a job board and talent pool for the blockchain ecosystem.

Serving talent for the entire blockchain ecosystem allowed for greater scale, but misses the opportunity to serve individual ecosystems and their unique requirements. There was an existing Web2 solution of embedding job board for particular ecosystems/groups of projects and we believed we could bring this to Web3.

It would be an ecosystem-by-ecosystem approach to growing our app, since all jobs and talent data would be stored and handled by our central app.
Reducing Scope
We had a decision to make. Whether this would be embedded via an iFrame or API. We decided to go with an iFrame solution to ensure a quick and easy onboarding, and to also reduce risk and complexity at this stage. We were working with a client (a top 50 blockchain) who had signed an LOI and we discussed with them how we would provide them with an agreed MVP and continue to develop and iterate features with their feedback.
Embedding the iFrame
With the decision to embed the job board as an iFrame, we wanted to ensure we could personalise the product experience on the client's website exactly as they wanted for their community. I mocked up some wireframes to communicate the opportunity for clients to embed on a branded page, with as much or as little context as possible, depending on their goals.
V1 Design
Our initial designs were based on the current design of the HireVibes app. Since we were reusing design elements, we began in higher fidelity. We developed a mockup of the branded client page, with our product embed. This allowed us to get feedback from our clients as to the look and feel of the final product, as well as performance.
V1 Feedback
We tested a prototype with the client to get initial feedback and better understand their goals, as well as the viability of the product. Some of their team were admin who would be managing the talent pool, and some would be hirers looking for talent.
"We want to keep them on site as much as possible"
"Pagination is a bit early. It should show more jobs before Load More button appears"
"We want the talent pool to be open and visible to everyone in the ecosystem"
"There’s nowhere for projects to add a job or for talent to signup"
V2 Design
Based on this feedback, we were able to iterate and expand the scope of the embedded product.
As well as browsing jobs and companies, we expanded a level of interaction and allowed users to apply to jobs directly via the iFrame.
talentportalapply
talentportalconfirm
V2 Feedback
At this point we launched the product with a small group of users and we tested with our clients, as well as companies and talent who had now signed up. This allowed us to get feedback as to the management and active usage of the product for all user types.
“I want a notification every time a new project signs up, so I can approve it right away.”
“There’s not a lot of value for hirers to see who’s a suitable candidate.”
“I want a clear view of what kind of jobs our ecosystem is hiring for, without having to leave the page.”
“As well as the jobs board, I want to manage our companies jobs, as we too are hiring.”
V3 Design
An ecosystem was now growing and being managed within our app. The feedback we received was useful for us to improve the product but also to our clients who wanted to ensure the product was of value to the ecosystem. At this stage:
  • We added the option to make the talent pool visible, redesigning the talent cards to be of value to hirers who had little time to judge talent
  • We added features to the admin panel, to allow our clients to reduce time needed to maintain the board
  • We merged the hirer/admin experience to reduce friction for clients who were also using the app to find and track applicants
  • We began to add customised visual brand elements such as inheriting colours
talentportalcards
hvappmyjobs
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Impact

44%

Increase in the user base over the duration of iterations

3X

Increase in user base over the following 6 months
You can see the HireVibes Talent Portal live at: www.stacks.co/jobs
In the meantime, we onboarded another client, increasing ARR and evidence of scalability of product opportunity. See here: https://mundocrypto.com/en/Jobs

Understanding the objective

There is stiff competition within each blockchain ecosystem to find the best talent and incorporate them into their ecosystem. The ability to serve these ecosystems would not only grow their talent pool but ours as well, as all talent and roles would be directed to and processed via our main app.
‍
A few thoughts were top of mind as we began to build the Talent Portal:

  • A similar service is currently being offered to the market, with an existing mental model and pricing structure
  • ‍We would be building this in conjunction with
  • We would look to serve other clients in the future and therefore seek to understand scalability and product-market fit
  • We would work off of the assumption that our jobs board is satisfying our users and therefore a plugin would serve a client's users in the same way. This would then serve as an opportunity to challenge this assumption on our app and find valuable feedback that may benefit both

Original Scope & V1 Design

The Stacks blockchain was on board to become the first ecosystem using our Talent Portal, and we began our initial designs with mockups of how we planned the Talent Portal to appear based on our app and also how the page would appear based on their website.

I decided to begin with higher fidelity designs, as we were reusing elements of our app. Also with paying clients, we were keen to give them a real look and gather feedback as to how they felt about our product embedded onto their branded webpage from a visual aspect as well as performance.

Panel showing all live jobs within the ecosystem
talentportaljobs
Panel showing all companies within the ecosystem
talentportalcompanies

Testing & Feedback

Once built as per initial mockups, we were keen to test the product on a live site and ensure the embed was a smooth process, and that companies, roles, and talent were signing up for the product and being displayed correctly. At this point we arranged several meetings with the client to test out product and gather feedback. This gave us better insight into their goals, and viability of the product. Some of their main points were:

"We want to keep them on the site as much as possible / we don't like that it goes to a different site"

"Pagination is a bit early. It should show more jobs before the Load More button appears"

"We want the talent pool to be open and visible to everyone in the ecosystem"

"There's nowhere for projects to add a job or for talent to sign up"

V2 Design

Based on this feedback we scoped out and designed possible iterations to the app that may improve the experience and overall performance of the app. Some of the main design changes at this stage included:

  • The ability to view job descriptions and companies' jobs within the widget. This meant one further step in the flow was conducted via the client's website, and users were not redirected to HireVibes unless they wanted to take an action such as applying or referring to a job. This was a technical challenge for the developers, but the design mirrored what was on our app today.
  • Inclusion of a main C2A button on each panel. Post Job, Add Company & Join Talent Pool.
  • Adding a third Panel, displaying the ecosystem talent pool via the widget alongside jobs and companies. The panel functioned similarly to the original panels and the design for this mirrored that of the talent list on our app. This was from feedback gathered that invalidated our assumption that the talent pool would be kept private.
  • We increased the pagination of the widget from 12 to 30 job/company cards before the Load More button appears. We would assess this again when a larger number of jobs were added to the board
talentportalapplytalentportalconfirm

V2 Feedback

The clients were more satisfied with the latest iteration of the Jobs Board, but with the product now launched and being actively used by their community, we had the opportunity to gather more feedback from the clients managing the jobs board as well as the companies and talent who had now signed up. This helped us to get a better idea of the context of use for the clients. Feedback included:

"I want a notification every time a new project signs up to the Jobs Board, so I can approve it right away"

"When searching the talent database, there is not a lot of value for hirers to know who is a suitable candidate"

"I want a clear view of what kind of jobs our ecosystem projects are hiring for without having to flick back to the Jobs Board page on our website"

"As well as manage the Jobs Board, I want to be able to manage our company's jobs, as we too are hiring"

V3 Design

Having reached the point where not only was the product live and embedded, but an ecosystem and talent pool was now growing and being managed, this feedback was of great value to see the user experience for our clients themselves, who were Job Board Admins. These changes were within our app, rather than the widget so we had to make sure we could implement what was necessary for Talent Portal Admins without disrupting other regular users of the app.

  • We updated the talent cards, to show more information at first glance. More relevant valuable information would be available to hirers at first glance. This was implemented on the app and the widget, as we deemed the feedback relevant to both areas
  • We added a My Board list, in the My Jobs panel, for Job Board Admins so they can have the same visibility into their ecosystems jobs as they do into their own
  • We added a toggle to allow some jobs to be hidden from appearing on the Jobs Board
  • We enabled email notifications to be sent to the Job Board admin every time a company requests to join the job board so that they can be made aware and approve the company soon as possible
talentportalcards
hvappmyjobs
hvapptoggle

The Impact

During the weeks in which we were making the changes, Stacks reported that the talent pool went from 191 members to 275 members. Although this meant an increase of 44%, the user base and pool were still quite small overall.

6 months later, the talent pool reached 935 members, meaning a 3.4X increase. This is only made more significant as the crypto industry was going through a significant bear market at this time.

44%

increase during updates

3.4 X

increase 6 months later

Conclusion

In working with blockchain ecosystems, we will be able to refine our understanding of how they are using our platform and how ecosystems like these are hiring.
‍
By powering the profiles on our backend, the scaling of the client's ecosystem in turn increases our database of talent and jobs. Improving this product and onboarding more ecosystems can exponentially grow our core product as well as revenue.
‍‍
As we continue to gather feedback from clients, some potential updates in our roadmap include:

  • Enable referrals via the client's embed page
  • Add more customisable features, eg. inherit font and other design elements from the client's website page
  • Integrations such as Zapier can allow ecosystems to tap into their current workflow. Auto-posting new jobs to ecosystem Discord or Slack channels etc.

You can see the HireVibes Talent Portal live at: www.stacks.co/jobs

Updating jobseeker list to improve talent searching process

Overview

Living in Las Palmas and being a member of the public bike rental scheme "Sitycleta" for 7 months, provided me with lots of experiences of the highs and lows of using the public bike systems. With a variety of issues experienced throughout the entire user journey, I wanted to highlight and iterate on the one area that I thought could have the most impact on the overall cohesion of the system.

Scope & Constraints

Living

Research

Being

Design

Being

Validation

Being

Outcomes & Results

Being

Lessons Learned / Future Iterations

Being a foreigner in Las Palmas, my experience may be quite different to locals who equal over 90% of the population. My network is distributed heavier towards English speakers, so of the people I spoke to during my research, many were also foreigners. This is of course, not an accurate representation of the largest sector of users, and I feel this would negatively impact the validity of my results.

Implementing Smart Contract functionality into the HireVibes app

Overview

Living in Las Palmas and being a member of the public bike rental scheme "Sitycleta" for 7 months, provided me with lots of experiences of the highs and lows of using the public bike systems. With a variety of issues experienced throughout the entire user journey, I wanted to highlight and iterate on the one area that I thought could have the most impact on the overall cohesion of the system.

Scope & Constraints

Living

Research

Being

Design

Being

Validation

Being

Outcomes & Results

Being

Lessons Learned / Future Iterations

Being a foreigner in Las Palmas, my experience may be quite different to locals who equal over 90% of the population. My network is distributed heavier towards English speakers, so of the people I spoke to during my research, many were also foreigners. This is of course, not an accurate representation of the largest sector of users, and I feel this would negatively impact the validity of my results.

Building ATS integrations into the HireVibes app

Overview

Living in Las Palmas and being a member of the public bike rental scheme "Sitycleta" for 7 months, provided me with lots of experiences of the highs and lows of using the public bike systems. With a variety of issues experienced throughout the entire user journey, I wanted to highlight and iterate on the one area that I thought could have the most impact on the overall cohesion of the system.

Scope & Constraints

Living

Research

Being

Design

Being

Validation

Being

Outcomes & Results

Being

Lessons Learned / Future Iterations

Being a foreigner in Las Palmas, my experience may be quite different to locals who equal over 90% of the population. My network is distributed heavier towards English speakers, so of the people I spoke to during my research, many were also foreigners. This is of course, not an accurate representation of the largest sector of users, and I feel this would negatively impact the validity of my results.

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