💪🏻 This project was led by myself (Akash Bulbule) alongside PMs (Gagan BT), to solve a critical growth problem (On experimental bases)

Company Overview

Powerplay is a B2B SaaS product providing tech solutions for the Indian Construction industry ($884B Market)

It acts as a Project execution tool helping construction owners Maximise profits by tracking Tasks, Labour, Materials, and Expenses.

Business Problem

• ~2,700 founders installed the app monthly (2023)

• Only 5% requested a demo

• Yet 82% of demo users converted to paid customers

Company Goal

Increase Monthly Demo Requests (MDR) from 5% → 30%+
Without:

• Increasing sales team bandwidth

• Changing pricing or conversion mechanics

Focussed Persona

• Construction Industry has different Owners segments based on project budgets varying from 1Cr - 50Cr

• For this project we focused on the S1 Founder (1-10 Cr)

Why?

• Largest Segment of 60% market

• Product built is more specific to them

Primary Persona: “Subbu” (Founder)

The Business decision-maker. Cares about project budgeting, cost analysis, and profitability.

Core Needs

• Reduce cost leakages

• Improve project visibility

• Make faster decisions

Key insight

After 30+ founder interviews and funnel analysis, we uncovered

We didn’t have a conversion problem. We had a Discovery + Value realisation problem.

The Diagnosis: Identifying the Friction

We audited the funnel and found that for every 100 installs, we were losing 95% of potential leads before they even understood what Powerplay did.

Why?

• Cognitive Overload: Onboarding took 4min & asked too many mandatory questions (intended for our internal research, not user value).

• Generic Value Prop: We showed everyone the same Daily Progress Report (DPR), but a "General Contractor" cares about different things than an "Interior Designer."

• The "Invisible" Value: 73% of founders didn't even realise the key value screens were scrollable (Report)

• Poor discoverability of demo entry points

• Lack of trust: The product didn't convey pricing, Data security, ROI clarity

Old Screens

The Strategy: The 4-Stage Experiment Protocol

Instead of one big redesign, we chose: Experiment-driven iteration

Why?

• Limited engineering bandwidth

• Faster validation cycles

• Clear attribution of impact

Role in Project

• User Interview: Conducted 32/57 user calls to map motivations and pain points.

• End-to-End Design: Led journey mapping, hypothesis building, and interactive prototyping.

• Collaboration: Bridged PM strategy and Engineering trade-offs to meet tight timelines.

• Validation: Owned usability testing and rapid iteration using real-world feedback.

Solution Phase

🧪 Experiment 01: Time-to-Value (The "Aha" Moment)

Goal: Reduce onboarding friction and personalise the value.

Problem

• Users confused within first 40 seconds

• Generic messaging didn’t resonate

Solution

• Removed unnecessary onboarding steps

• Eliminated irrelevant data collection

• Introduced Problem-based value framing:

  • Cost overruns

  • Payment visibility

  • Project delays

Outcome

📈 MDR: 5% → 22.65% (+17.65%)

🧪 Experiment 02: Confidence & Social Proof

Goal: Address the "Is this safe?" and "Is it worth it?" questions.

Problem

Users hesitated due to:

• Pricing confusion

• Lack of trust

• Unanswered questions

Solution

Introduced FAQ covering:

• Pricing

• Data security

• Support

• Added social proof & credibility signals

• Simplified pricing into one plan (Pro)

Outcome

📈 MDR: 22.65% → 32.57% (+9.92%)

🧪 Experiment 03: Contextual Discoverability

Goal: Catch the user when they are feeling the pain.

Problem

• Users couldn’t easily find demo entry points

• Value was hidden inside modules

Solution

• Added contextual CTAs across modules

• Introduced problem-specific videos

• Built centralised help/video repository

Outcome

📈 MDR: 32.57% → 39.88% (+7.31%)

🧪 Experiment 04: Retention & WhatsApp Nurturing

Goal: Re-engage founders who dropped off after their first session.

Problem

• Founders often installed the app, explored briefly, and then forgot to return.

• The "Aha!" moment wasn't always sticky enough to lead to an immediate demo request.

Solution

• WhatsApp-based re-engagement within 24hrs

• Value-driven video nudges

Outcome

📈 MDR: 39.88% → 44.98% (+5.1%)

Final Impact:

🚀 From 5% → 44.98% MDR (Mobile demo Requests)

Impact Breakdown