"Kigyo Jidai" (Startup Era), a new service that supports information gathering and the process leading up to the establishment of a new business
Startup and Business Establishment Support App: "Kigyo Jidai"
Challenges:
Since the enactment of the new Companies Act in 2006, the number of startups has steadily increased. However, the process from deciding to start a business to actually establishing a corporation has presented certain hurdles due to the complexity of procedures and the large number of tasks involved.
freee was exploring ways to encourage more people to start businesses. For those interested in entrepreneurship but hesitant to take the first step, they initiated the production of "Kigyo Jidai" (Startup Era), a magazine comprehensively explaining the process of starting a business.
However, the magazine format made it difficult to manage the individual progress of customers' startups and provide information tailored to their specific stage. Therefore, the development of a more personalized product was required.
As the development was expected to involve exploring functional requirements, there was a need for a partner capable of agile development, which is resilient to specification changes and feature additions, and possessed extensive experience in app development and UI design.
Solutions:
Monstarlab conducted hearings to understand the necessary functional requirements for the app and carried out requirements definition sessions involving all stakeholders. Through repeated discussions on how the app would be used, they determined the specifications and explored implementation methods.
Initially, they selected and organized the startup-related tasks explained in the "Kigyo Jidai" magazine into tasks for sole proprietors and tasks for corporations, and then created wireframes.
In terms of information architecture and UI design, they incorporated mechanisms to maintain daily motivation for app users by displaying articles relevant to their startup preparation phase, messages from experienced entrepreneurs, and tasks. They also focused on creating a design that prioritized usability.
For development, they adopted Flutter, a cross-platform framework capable of supporting both iOS and Android. They proposed agile development, which is robust against specification changes and feature additions, and iteratively made improvements to address bugs and enhance usability.
Results:
The June 2022 release included features such as "Startup Story," which guides users through the process from self-analysis to company establishment, "Startup Guidepost," offering real-life success stories from experienced entrepreneurs, and an album function to record the journey to incorporation. These features contributed to an increase in users taking the leap into entrepreneurship.
Furthermore, in December of the same year, the task management feature for starting a business was redesigned to express a sense of accomplishment. This was achieved by incorporating a comprehensive list of tasks and gamification elements resembling the conquest of a voyage across a deserted island.
The Project Owner at freee praised Monstarlab, stating, "It was the launch phase of the Kigyo Jidai brand, and it was our first attempt at a startup checklist app. Even as the app's content fluidly changed, they responded flexibly."
Monstarlab continues to provide support, flexibly progressing with product updates and content enrichment, with the aim of further service improvement and feature expansion.