Boro – Catherine To

Rental marketplace

Mission

In an effort to reduce overconsumption and the unnecessary purchase of little used items and goods, this new platform encourages a culture of borrowing between employees in the workplace, thereby heavily focusing on the reuse principle of the circular economy.

Solution

As an early startup, Boro’s vision, mission and values required input from many different areas, including sustainable design, marketing, strategy, operations, technology, regenerative economy and product.

The end result is a marketplace where borrowers and lenders can meet in a safe and trusted environment, transacting their idle assets, while reducing their carbon emissions and having a positive impact on their surroundings.

B2B2C marketplace available on desktop. Mobile web in progress.

Lead Product Manager (2023-ongoing)

I focused on the three pillars of product discovery, planning and development.
More details below.

Competitive landscape

Product Discovery

Competitive benchmark analysis.
Researched competitors across North America and Europe to distinguish key features, offerings, audiences, revenue models, fees and charges.
Identified main competitors, with a focus on community & membership, UI/UX, trading type, incentives, trust & safety to create value and features for the customers.

Marketplace learnings

Product Discovery

Write up a report on my learnings working on a TV marketplace that handles premium TV inventory worth billions of $ in a previous role.
The report focused on the different types of marketplaces, guiding principles and key learnings in standardisation, workflow, data/analytics, forecasting/recommendations and a support system.
The document highlighted learnings and how these could apply to Boro through company and platform values and principles as well as product features. Boro's guiding principles were created as a result, as well as more detailed product feature opportunities.

Product vision and strategy

Product Planning

Create vision and strategy.
1. Developed vision board that included Boro's target group, needs, product, business goals, competitors. revenue streams, cost factors and channels.
2. Created personas and their archetypes.
3. Designed customer journey map and product user flows.
This resulted in identifying the target audience of the product and its functionality through clear and simple workflow structure. I created lo-fi mocks to illustrate the interaction in a visual way.

Design & development

Product Development

Identify requirements, user stories and acceptance criteria.
1. A product requirements document was created to prioritise the must have features for MTP and MVP, with nice-to-have features being developed in V1+. Detailed user stories were created as a result.
2. I wrote detailed product specs for each feature and worked closely with remote UI designer and development team to bring the features alive.
Features were tested at the end of each sprint to ensure usability at each stage.

User acceptance testing

Product Development

1. Prior to MVP release, we conducted a test day to identify bugs and usability functionality.
2. Pre-pilot test with client.
1. Wrote test plan for users to test individual features and acted as product expert/support where needed.
2. Worked with pilot team for messaging, expectations and created surveys.
1. Identified issues that required fixes before launch, 7.5% were critical.
2. Technical issues were discovered that led to re-evaluation of the platform stability, resulting in architecture and workflow reviews.

Roadmap & backlog

Product Planning & Development

Set clear roadmap and prioritised backlog.
Following development and user testing, I am working on a clear roadmap taking into account the product strategy and expected inputs from the business and its goals.
I am creating a 6-12 month roadmap and backlog that prioritises and optimises existing and new features iteratively.

Desktop platform

The MVP launched in November 2023 on desktop.