In the digital age, maintaining an active online presence is crucial for small businesses.

However, internal data indicated a significant challenge: almost 50% of users who started a free trial on the HS platform abandoned it before achieving meaningful progress.

Further user research revealed that a key reason for inactivity was content creation paralysis. Many users, especially small business owners who handle their own social media alongside other responsibilities, found it difficult to come up with compelling content ideas. This struggle led to them becoming inactive and eventually abandoning the platform.

Understanding the user:
the ‘Solo Superstar’

The primary users affected were dubbed “Solo Superstars”—entrepreneurs or small business owners juggling multiple responsibilities.

They often lacked advanced marketing expertise and the time to develop consistent, compelling content for their audiences.

Crafting solutions through collaborative workshops

To tackle this issue, a two-part workshop series was held. The initial workshop centered on generating possible solutions, while the subsequent workshop concentrated on developing these potential concepts.

Workshop 1

Workshop-generated ideas were categorized into three groups based on their reliance on an AI-powered solution: from fully manual to fully automated. This collaborative process resulted in the development of two concepts.

Workshop 2

The second workshop focused on mapping the elements within the system that would be involved with the project: Entities, Entry points, post structure, brand and visual identity, etc.

Bringing ‘Content Lab’ to Life

The Content Lab was designed with features tailored to the needs of Solo Superstars:

• Idea Catalog: A curated library of content ideas categorized for easy navigation.
• Questionnaire: A tool to personalize content suggestions based on user input.
• Suggested Ideas: Customized content prompts generated from questionnaire responses.

Concept Testing

The concept was well received. Users particularly valued its ability to spark ideas when creativity is lacking and to generate quality “filler” content. The content categories were generally clear and made sense to users.

Additionally, the UI was praised for being intuitive, easy to navigate, and well-structured for filtering ideas efficiently.

“I love this! There’s many a time where I went looking around on the internet, trying to find some ideas on what to do. And this is great!”

P4, Religious org

The main suggestion for improvement was to provide more real-world examples of how other organizations have implemented similar ideas.

“It would be good if it had a different example of how other people did it.”

P1, Technology