Adhocado

Your business scheduling companion that learns as you use it, helping you maximize your time.

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Inspiration

The harsh reality in an interdependent world If small businesses and enterprises struggle, it affects Indonesians and the Nation-State too

Personal struggles

We (as students and business entrepreneurs) struggle to manage our busy schedule and utilize our time efficiently. Many do not have the time to spare their calendar a second look or rearrange their time to figure out how they can increase productivity.

Hence, there is a pressing need for a solution that

  1. Considers the various stakeholders mentioned above
  2. Helps businesses and people maximize their time efficiently, furthering earnings on both sides - quantitatively and qualitatively

What it does

A mobile application that has the calendar functionality integrated with AI-powered recommendations

  1. Simplifies the hiring process of Indonesian businesses who are able to find passionate workers more easily and efficiently, thereby focusing their time and resources elsewhere to bring growth to their company
  2. Detects Indonesian’s free time and recommend them the most suitable job that resonates within their needs (e.g. geography, income earned, interest etc.). They do not have to sieve amongst existing cluttered interfaces and struggle to find jobs that are hiring

How we built it

  • React Native
  • Firebase (backend)
  • Adobe XD We decided to use React Native to build out the application as it provides great ease of use and fast development experience, with cross-platform compatibility. React Native apps perform almost exactly like a native app that was built on the specific iOS or Android platform. They are also fast because the programming language is optimized for mobile devices. This makes them much faster than cross-platform hybrid technologies.

The application was initially prototyped with Adobe XD, with the User Interfaces for both employer and employee sides carefully thought-out. However, our team’s experience with React Native is very limited and we had difficulty with building out the application, especially when dealing with navigation and integrating different parts of the UI. We are also integrating Firebase as our backend to handle data integrity throughout the application’s ecosystem. This way, the application can scale well and allow many employers and employees to link up with one another.

Challenges we ran into

Differentiating ourselves from other solutions out there We reflected on what our main value proposition is to be. It is then to incorporate the various stakeholders into our app. While it is a solution targeted to improve small businesses, we do not ignore the rest of the users in our app (e.g. Indonesian job seekers). We empower everyone using our app

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our solution encompasses both the business and social side, and targets different stakeholders We solve the following pain points for:

  1. Small businesses
    • Hiring process
    • Gaining traction and having their name out there
    • Sustainability in the long run
  2. Indonesians
    • Finding a job quickly
    • Standard of living
    • Personal and professional growth

Helping the above two parties subsequently uplift Indonesia’s overall economy as a whole, with lesser jobless people and increased business productivity

No direct competitors This means that our solution is innovative and unique. After engaging in competitive analysis, there is no platform that helps businesses ease their hiring process and increase productivity at the same time. At the same time, there is no platform that integrates users various calendars to recommend jobs that fit their schedule.

Validated solution While it is a solution that is feasible, the core of it also lies in our validation - whether our product is wanted. It is important to understand the difference between people “liking” our product, and “using” or “buying” our product.

Hence, we engaged in market validation to continue enhancing our prototype and carry out validation on the product to test its technical feasibility. Close to 93% (out of ~200 surveys) stated that they will use our application.

What we learned

Customers are key Understanding the respective user/stakeholder’s journey is crucial. In a VUCA world, we have to constantly understand the evolving wants and needs of businesses and general users of our app. Only by constant validation and adjustments of our product to ensure we remain relevant in their journey, can we then ensure that our platform brings across growth, efficiency and productivity to these parties.

What's next for Adhocado

Expanding on other features

  1. Employees profile
    • We aim to allow them to add on to their profiles so that it is easier for them to find more jobs in future when people can see their past work experience
    • This also build the foundations of a resume they do not know
  2. Reviews and Ratings
    • Increase reliability for businesses and users
    • Increased security

Scaling
Beyond the job market - e.g. usual F&B industries, we can expand into volunteering or other courses and classes that users are interested in. Our app then helps a larger number of small businesses across these agnostic industries (in making more earnings), and Indonesians (in their personal and professional growth)

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