CapSource – BRAND & PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

I am a co-founder, along with Jordan Levy and Ankush Manchanda, and former Director of Marketing & Design of CapSource, a high-growth edtech startup whose software and services helps schools and companies to more effectively develop and place talent by enabling high-impact experiential learning and hiring programs.

CapSource has connected 10,000+ students from 150+ academic partners to 750+ industry partners from all over the world. Working directly with students or our growing network of 460 educators, we established a strong position in a competitive market and successfully launched live cases, case competitions, mentoring and internships!

The Problem CapSources Solves

The Solution

CapSource offers strategically tailored services and experiential learning software to bridge the skills gap by connecting companies with students and educators that strive to put knowledge into practice with real-world learning experiences. Whether it’s an educator looking to energize the classroom and empower students, students searching or a resume-worthy opportunity, or companies focused on engaging with prospective talent,  CapSource provides an ecosystem of resources that are customizable, intuitive, and rewarding for all stakeholders.

Reflection

My experience as a co-founder has been invaluable not only due to collaborating with an amazing and empowering team but also because of the measurable impact that CapSource has had on students all over the world. CapSource aligns with the trends of working in the startup world – high pressure, learning on-the-go, fast timelines, constrained resources, innovative thinking, and constantly shifting client demands while managing strategic product growth. To keep up with the startup pace, “standard” processes were not always followed but rather out-of-the-box methods were required to push the CapSource brand and product forward. As the company evolved and accrued more resources, improved processes enabled sustainable success for the team. Instead of learning and implementing, we were able to dive deep into the data, analyze the problem from multiple perspectives, and organize the insights. The evolution of CapSource from early stage to high-growth startup taught me the power of a methodical approach to product development – a lesson I refer to in current and past projects!

Despite my passion for CapSource, I decided to take a breather after 5+ years of devoting 24/7 to growing the company. I know serve as an advisor, supporting the team on an as-needed basis.

Time in role: ~ 5 years

Skills Utilized:

• Brand identity strategy & development
• User research
• Journey mapping
• UI/UX design
• Product strategy
• Product Development
• Digital marketing
• Data analysis
• Go-t0-market strategy
• Competitor analysis
• Business evaluations & strategy
• Leadership & team development

Role Overview: After meeting Jordan Levy, the original CapSource founder, at a startup fair at Lehigh University, I was instantly intrigued by the company’s mission and the opportunities to contribute to building a product from scratch. Ready for a challenge that required a unique combination of technical knowledge, business acumen, and design thinking, I quickly proved my dedication, creativity and ability to work in a fast-paced environment and took on the role as Director of Marketing & Design. In this role, I managed a 9-person team of graphic designers, researchers, content strategists, and software developers to develop/implement  marketing strategies and user interfaces that inspired customers to engage with CapSource’s offerings. I also played a key role in informing the business plans as we forecasted and planned for CapSource’s long-term success and scalability.

Contributions to Brand Development 

Focus Areas: Brand Identity, Customer Personas, Competitor Analysis

Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Figma

When I started at CapSource, the brand had a basic framework and established customer based but lacked consistency and design direction. I recognized an opportunity to revitalize the CapSource with a more modern look & feel that would resonate with customers and improve brand awareness with targeted marketing campaigns. 

Navigating users were another piece of the puzzle since CapSource serves 3 separate customer bases (students, educators, and teachers) – each with a unique set of needs and wants. It became my responsibility to “fall in love” with our existing and prospective customers by learning about their interests, motivations, and desired experience interacting with CapSource. As the customers needs/wants were constantly evolving, we understood that navigating the user challenge would require continuous user research and iteration to map their individual lifecycles.

In terms of user research, thorough user interviews (with diverse representation from students, educators, and industry professionals), targeted communication via surveys, and regular monthly check ins with existing customers were used to refine brand positioning and develop the customer personas that serve as the foundation of CapSource products. The research insights would design and marketing strategies on how to engage with customers on various social channels and alternative outlets, such as job sites.

UNDERSTANDING THE 3 USER PERSONAS

BRANDING

When redefining the brand identity, it was vital to implement a cohesive visual design system that would capture audiences, allow for flexibility and scalability, and stand out among competitors.

These are the final the color guidelines that are used throughout the frontend user design and backend products. The combination of power from red, friendly optimism from orange, the stability and creativity associated from the purple tones would contribute to visually conveying CapSource’s vision and values. Several tones of this palette were experimented with until we found the combination with the most crisp contrast that would support greater accessibility for audiences.

LOGO DEVELOPMENT 

ICONOGRAPHY

COMPETITIVE MARKET ANALYSIS 

This market analysis depicts how CapSource has a unique and competitive position in the market with flexibility to tap into various audiences and address their needs/wants.

Contributions to Frontend Website Design 

Focus areas: Customer Journey Mapping, Wireframing, Prototyping, Project Management, Bug Resolution

Tools: Miro, Figma, Jira

In terms of outlining the user flow, the goal was to address the three user groups with relevant, targeted content that streamlined their journey to the desired result and guided them to take action, such as scheduling a meeting or creating an account. To create consistency and present a composed, professional appearance, the visual design system was applied to each page and user touchpoint. With the CapSource brand in its early stages, it was essential to cohesively represent and expand the brand through each interaction.

The Miro board below shows the initial plans for the user flow that were later implemented through coordination with the software engineers and supporting designers. By eventually tracking metrics on Google Analytics (related to conversion rates, clicks, etc.), our team noticed higher conversion success when the the website visitor scheduled a meeting before leaving the site and connected with our effective Sales Teams, who could provide helpful context and further simplify next steps.

Following definition of user flows, I designed the lo-fi wireframes and hi-fi prototypes for all frontend pages that were brought to life by the engineering team. Open collaboration and iteration were required to create the final result!

DRAFTED USER FLOW

Contributions to Marketing Strategy 

Focus areas: Digital Marketing, Analytics, Content Creation, Marketing Campaigns, CRM organization, Blog & Webinar Coordination

Tools: Figma, Hubspot, Canva, Adobe Illustrator & InDesign, Canva

• Owned HubSpot Marketing Hub, including contact management, email marketing campaigns to drive engagement, and traffic conversion analytics that informed improvement opportunities
• Launched email marketing campaigns uniquely targeting educators, students, and companies
• Routinely evaluated Google Analytics metrics to understand how users and customers navigated between touch points
• Established and grew social media presence to connect with students, educators, and companies
• Coordinated monthly webinars to capture new audiences and increase brand recognition
• Designed and/or coached graphic design development for social media, blogs, and webinars

Contributions to Product/Software Development

Focus areas: Definition of User Requirements, Wireframing, Prototyping, SCRUM, Agile

Tools: Figma, Jira, Adobe Illustrator, Notion

In it early stages, CapSource primarily focused efforts on the sourcing & design service, which required the team to manually design and coordinate the live cases experiences with all stakeholders. After creating a refined internal system to facilitate this manual process, we identified an opportunity to independently launch a software that placed the power of developing and scaling experiential learning and hiring programs in the hands of the educators and companies.

The result of this was CapSource CONNECT, a customizable experiential learning and hiring management system! Our team used the agile methodology to develop this technology from scratch, working together to define the user requirements and manage feature development. In addition to co-leading product development, I played a key role in aligning the aesthetics with the existing visual design system and ensuring the user experience reflected our customers needs/wants.

Since the CapSource CONNECT software was completely customizable to the academic and industry partners, I led the engineers in developing a backend control system that enabled simple adjustments to font color, style, and iconography that streamlined creation of each instance by 75%.

User Testimonials