Headbox - airbnb for creative meeting spaces -- how brilliant basics collaborated with headbox to deliver a world class proposition to market in record time.

1. © 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence
HEADBOX
Case Study
1

2. © 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence2
HeadBox
Platform where guests can find and book
spaces listed by hosts
Booking engine solves the following tasks:
• Book in 4 clicks (even 3 if you drop payment!)
• Book by day or by the hour
• Add optional catering
• Notify hosts of new requests and guests of
acceptance
• Let hosts approve or decline booking requests
• Automatically expire and finish bookings as the
time passes
• Book multiple time slots at the same time
• Manage availability
• Prevent booking conflicts
Outside booking the platform also has: host-managed
listings, multi-faceted search, online payments, internal
messaging, review system, rewards scheme. All
delivered in 7 months from inception to launch.

3. © 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence
Building a space sharing
marketplace from the ground up

4. © 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence
PROPOSITION
Platform where guests can
find and book spaces listed by hosts
to make brilliant things happen
4

5. © 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence
SCOPING AN MVP
5
Guests Hosts
Business
MVP
Minimal Viable Product is
made up of the functionality
that is essential to three
audiences of the platform.
Finding what lies on the
intersection and focusing on
that is crucial for the
successful launch.

6. © 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence
SCOPING AN MVP
6
Amount of user stories
Identified
Prioritised
Included into MVP
Implemented
180
71
32
36
Early days of the project saw some
severe prioritisation as the team
was seeking the right focus.
The result is two-fold:
— High precision of delivery for
closed beta and launch
— Roadmap for future
development that can be
assessed and executed

7. © 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence
WORKSTREAMS
Practical flexibility at the heart of the approach:
—Core process following Agile approach (Scrum)
—Staggered sprints for Design and Development streams
with tight drop-in points
—Other jobs scheduled in depending on the phase (User
Testing, Infrastructure)
—Proportion between Design and Development varied
depending on the phase
—Team changing bandwidth as needed whilst keeping the
core intact
7
Design Development
Infrastructure
Closed Beta launch
Public launch
Kick-off

8. © 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence
TEAM
Product ownership
shared between
the founder and
bb enabled
effective merge of
expertise and
helpful balance of
effort
8
Operations,
Investor Relations,
Sales
Execution
Product
Ownership
Founder Product
Manager
Cross-functional team
Product
Owner
Strategy, BA, UX, Design,
Dev, QA, DevOps
Scrum
Master

9. © 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence
AGILITY BY THE BOOK
We believe that the Scrum method works,
so with HeadBox we decided to:
— Skip no steps
— Avoid changes of team members
— Produce no waste
(everything documented in user stories and
graphic assets)
— Invest time into backlog clarity
— Use the ceremonies to the fullest
— Manage dependencies tightly
9 Image from: www.axosoft.com/scrum

10. © 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence
TOOLS
Lean collaboration:
— Jira: Everything we need to do
(epics, stories, tasks, defects)
— InVision: Everything we need to agree on
(sketches, design explorations, comments and
reviews)
— Dropbox: Everything we need to use
(imagery, downloadable assets, content)
Outcomes:
— Very few places to go to for information
— No vanity time spent copying&pasting, translating,
resending, reformatting
— Full transparency and tightest version control
10

11. Closed beta launch (15-Jul)
Ability to sign up and manage account
Ability to list spaces and search for them
Platform available for hosts to sign-up
C2C Workshop (13-Mar)
Brand foundation
Proposition and Vision
Initial backlog
Review system launch (21-Sep)
Ability to book and pay
Ability to review spaces and guests
Admin reports for HeadBox
Design ramps down (4-Jun)
Core user journeys fleshed out
Library of design models built
Design moves into supporting role
© 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence11
Conversation
CREATION2
Public launch (12-Oct)
Platform made publicly available for guests
Product launch and publicity
Collections introduced
Reward Scheme launch (26-Oct)
Ability to sign up for Membership
Ability to earn rewards for finished bookings
Ability to redeem rewards with major

12. © 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence
Timing
12
4m 3m
From Beta launch
to public launch
From inception to
Beta launch

13. © 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence
Development effort
13
17 20 125
ReleasesDevelopment
sprints
User stories
implemented

14. © 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence
Team
14
1–8 3–15
bbHeadBox

15. © 2015, Brilliant Basics Ltd - Commercial in Confidence
Platform
15
1910 5901 100+984
GuestsSpaces MembersHosts