The platform “Pro Podnikavé” improves lives of small entrepreneurs
Micro and small entrepreneurs make up about 99% of active businesses in the Czech Republic and employ up to half of the employees. They are the heroes of our economy and sometimes they do not have it easy. That’s why Mastercard Strive™ Czechia has created the Pro Podnikavé online platform to bring small improvements to small businesses to make big things happen. What role did we play in this?
Our design team started working with CARE Czech Republic in March 2023. The vision of the project was to help micro and small businesses grow faster through an online platform that brings together ideas, tools, events, tests and other useful information for micro and small entrepreneurs as well as freelancers. How to build the platform and what market insights and then propositions to build it on to make it truly useful for small entrepreneurs was a challenge for our design team.
We proceeded agilely in sprints. In the beginning, we gathered market insights directly from entrepreneurs. Based on the strongest unfilled needs, we built 12 specific concepts that could form the content of the platform. With entrepreneurs, we narrowed them down to 4. And through several rounds of prototyping with entrepreneurs, we gradually verified their attractiveness and other preconditions for their success. We then proposed the specific structure and design of the screens. In March 2024, the platform called “Pro Podnikavé” saw the light of day.
The Strive Czech Republic programme, under which the platform was created, has the ambition to serve over 250,000 micro-entrepreneurs by 2025 and to support them in their entrepreneurship, efficiency, digitalisation and growth.
“Working with Direct People has been practical and insightful. It was interesting to see how a product is created from its beginnings, how testing with the target group works and how our opinions can differ from the opinions of the target group. Many adjustments and new features were born in our heads every day and I appreciate that the team was able to react to them quickly and calmly.”
Petra Rummelová
Head of Programme Strive Czechia, CARE Czech republic
About CARE Czech Republic
CARE Czech Republic is a member of CARE International, one of the world’s leading international humanitarian organizations. Since 1945, we have been fighting poverty, promoting human dignity and responding immediately to crises and humanitarian disasters.
2023 Direct People
Created by Beneš & Michl
