An Innovative Mobile App for America's Tradespeople
Challenge
Just a few months after launching, Trade Hounds, a community-based mobile app uniquely designed for the hard-working tradespeople of America, had already amassed a thriving user base of over 50,000 tradespeople. Now, each new day finds thousands of these users logging in to share images with one another, communicate with friends and employers, and make valuable connections to build their professional network and portfolio. But, despite the popularity of the app today, its success was far from guaranteed. To start, Trade Hounds founder David Broomhead sought out expert developers, designers, and strategists capable of creating specialized technological solutions, but found this could only be done in short sprints at a time. With pressure building, David turned to Jon Clark, CTO of ADK Group, to help shore up his business's infrastructure. Together, Jon and David established a strong founding team with the hire of CFO and co-founder, Peter Maglathlin.
Solution
The ADK / Trade Hounds team-up began with an intensive discovery workshop led by a Senior Project Manager at ADK. The product team took over one of the collaboration rooms and explored the entire breadth of possibilities for the app before prioritizing each one based on the technical lift it would require, the length of time it would take to develop, and the ultimate value to the intended user. Using agile methodology, the team worked in two-week sprints to bring that roadmap to life. These brainstorming sessions resulted in an intuitive, groundbreaking, and fun-to-use mobile app supported by a well-defined product roadmap. And thanks to the app's scalability, it has the potential to evolve from its current user base of 50,000+ individuals to potential millions. Meanwhile, advanced features such as natural language processing, image recognition, and state-of-the-art AI capabilities will be progressively implemented to further enhance the app's potential over time.
Results
The prototypes created by the ADK team during the preliminary workshop sessions provided the ammunition needed for Trade Hounds' first round of financing. Jon Clark, having been involved with countless fundraising meetings, stepped up his involvement once again and was instrumental in the success of Trade Hounds' first, multi-million dollar round of fundraising. The clearly articulated business model also attracted sponsorships from major brands including Dunkin' and Carhartt, which Jon helped to negotiate. These early wins built the groundwork for strong growth. In just six short months, ADK group built the Trade Hounds app from a prototype to a fully launched product available in the App Store and Google Play. Today, ADK continues to help Trade Hounds compound this expansion by layering on new growth mechanisms and optimizing conversion funnels to create an inherently viral and sticky product. In addition, Jon Clark is so involved in the development of Trade Hounds that he is listed as the CTO and co-founder on the official Trade Hounds website!
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