I was hired at G-Able to plan and launch this B2B app directory for Thai software. For 8 months in 2016, I acted as Product Owner, Creative Director, Marketer and UX Designer. I had a staff of 2 back-end developers, 2 front-end developers, 1 marketer and 1 graphic designer.

Title: Director of Business Development at G-Able Thailand
Project Role:Product Owner, Creative Direction, Marketing and UX Design
Stakeholders: Vice President of Business Development at G-Able

Research

We got to know the existing ecosystem in Thailand to learn what services were available and where there were gaps. We did deep dives into

  • Thai government resources
  • Software Review sites
  • Enterprise startups
  • Incubators
  • Venture Capitalists

We attended multiple start-up fairs, and began to assemble a directory of B2B services to approach.

Feature Design and Business Rules

The team and I spent many whiteboard sessions mapping out all the features we would need, then organizing them into sprints. We took features from ideas to workflows, then rough wireframes.

Branding and Design

trabila icon
We had to come up with a fresh brand name, URL and visual identity for the directory. Trabila was eventually chosen for being related to the word for Work in Spanish and Italian (and the URL was available) The Three T’s come together to form a sphere, or ecosystem. The colors are inspired by Bangkok Taxis.

Marketing Strategy

I designed a multi-channel marketing approach, to fill the marketplace with buyers and vendors. The Marketing homepage was designed to draw business customers, with the idea that a website with customers would entice vendors.

 

Multi-channel marketing timeline

Directory Website

The main product was a 3-user directory website. Customers could browse through categories and shop for software. Software vendors could log in to their portal and add and update listings. As admins, the Trabila team could moderate listings, manage categories and make edits. The sitemap below shows the various areas of the site, with the marketing website and blog being run in WordPress while the directory and portals were custom coded.

Sitemap

The sitemap marks the flow between the marketing website, the blog and the logged in portal. Each area is color-coded to show its navigational differences

Prototypes

I worked a sprint ahead of development and created prototypes for the marketing website, Vendor user, Admin user and public directories. See the gif below for a tour of the public directory. Full prototype link.

Vendor User

Software developers can register to list their service on Trabila. They can add their product information, process and screenshots.

Development

The Trabila product team

The product team I managed had 2 front-end and 2 back-end developers, as well as a lead dev who acted as scrum master. I also managed a UI designer and marketing coordinator.

We ran 12 sprints total, with a few pivots in between. I learned that we should have launched a catalog with items we had manually added, we did not have to build a fully automated workflow for the catalog to be marketable.

We also learned that due to a unique company financial setup, it would be difficult to facilitate sales for the software. The project was paused, but code was re-used for an e-commerce project.