whatever.works

Revolutionizing employee time-outs with an award-winning innovative SaaS venture

WEEKS FROM VALIDATION TO FUNCTIONAL
MVP

CONVERSION RATE ON LANDING PAGE TEST

TEAMS MEMBERS WITHIN 4 MONTHS

The ask

JobRad sought to pilot corporate venture building to establish new digital revenue streams within their existing customer base.

The Solution

MVP Factory executed end-to-end venture building, transforming their initial idea into a successful, scalable SaaS platform - whatever.works: Germany’s first management system around workations.

Background

After an initial market study on the different timeout formats, Uwe Michaelis and Alexandros Molphetas, two JobRad employees, identified an unmet need for a solution that allows employers to offer compliant timeouts minus complicated bureaucratic processes. However, despite having a clear vision, they needed help scoping their business idea to something viable and taking it to market.

The Challenge

The primary shortcoming Uwe and Alexandros faced when bringing the concept to life was the market expertise in validating the business model. They lacked resources for comprehensive market research and competitive analysis, making it difficult to define the solution space clearly and translate the findings into actionable next steps.

The clear challenge was to test the value proposition, revive the momentum, and kickstart the journey from an abstract concept to a tangible, scalable business solution.

The whatever.works team

Process

What we did

Validation & Prototyping

When the MVPF team joined the project, one thing was clear - we needed to validate the desirability of the idea. Thus, we designed a business model and built a landing page to assess companies’ motivations when providing workations; we tested four hypotheses, legal security, employee branding, employee well-being, and ease of the process.

We also organized 15 legal workshops and ran dummy tests. The results, including a 7% conversion rate on the landing page test, helped us understand the importance of legal security and employee well–being for companies, translating the complicated topic into a tangible solution with a defined scope.

Build & MVP

Once we had a validated prototype, we swiftly moved into the MVP building phase, creating a functional MVP within 12 weeks. To test and refine the platform, we engaged multiple pilot customers and developed a business case that offers high robustness and supports the venture's growth.

Our product design and engineering expertise enabled us to provide the team with multiple technical options, varying in cost, speed, and scalability - all of this to ensure that whatever.works starts with a solid foundation and a clear path to scalability.

Incorporation & Growth

We didn't stop at building the MVP - the MVPF team took end-to-end ownership of the venture as an active part of the founding team. We set up the necessary operations, expanded the product offering based on valuable customer feedback, and devised a strategic go-to-market plan.

After a successful market launch, we identified an additional gap in the market positioning and decided to rebrand to better reflect the vision of the platform. Now, the team is on its way to finalise the strategy and establish a financial model.

Team of whatever.works holding startup award

achiEvements

Value delivered

Together we turned whatever.works from a stalled idea into a successful award-winning SaaS platform.

MVP Factory's commitment to act as an active part of the founding team, driving value and establishing end-to-end venture-building, has transformed the venture from a stalled idea into a successful SaaS platform. The collaboration of the founding team and MVP Factory has not only accomplished a successful rebranding but also grew the team from 2 to 13 within 4 months.

We are incredibly proud that whatever.works has received the PMK HR Startup Award for the best HR Startup of 2023 - another social proof of market acceptance of the platform’s viability, feasibility, and desirability. With MVP Factory’s support, whatever.works is rapidly scaling, gaining increasing partners, and cementing its position as a leading solution in the employee timeout market.