Case Study: SAAS Startup
MediaKit
Building a paid version of a growing product, while creating processes to support long-term success.
Idea
Empower digital creators to showcase their success
Challenge
Evolve a SAAS product that creates digital media kits
Services
Custom software development; staff augmentation; process improvement; and product management
The Company
About Media Kits
MediaKits is a SAAS company that provides a simple and easy to use platform for influencers, bloggers, and musicians to create a custom media kit online with real-time data and analytics.
Each MediaKit compiles data from social media platforms, Google Analytics and streaming services, and packages it into a customizable, beautiful dashboard. This service makes it easy for creatives to showcase their achievements to fan, agents, press agencies, corporate sponsors, and more.
“I’m a non-technical founder and so is my co-founder. So that’s why Revelry Labs was a godsend. We were really trying to make sure that we put the right team in the right seats at MediaKits. Overall the experience was incredible and I have nothing but good things to say about it.”
– Kieran O’Brien, Founder, MediaKits
HELPFUL CONTEXT
Ready to Grow
When our partnership with MediaKits began, the company was a growing early-stage startup. Founders Kieran O’Brien and Casey Adams were ready to build a pro version of their product to allow for monetization, but their internationally distributed, part-time technical team was not able to manage the workload alone.
To achieve its goals, MediaKits hired a full-time developer and partnered with Revelry to overcome technical changes that would allow the company to grow the product for years to come.
The Challenge
Product, Process, and Development
Revelry’s team partnered with MediaKits to develop new features with engineering; build solid technical processes; integrate product management principles into all phases of development; and augment its team as it grew into a larger company.
The Solution
Cleaning Up Technical Debt
We began our partnership with MediaKits by working with the company’s senior engineer to identify the application’s technical strengths and growth opportunities. After completing a code audit, we cleaned up technical debt in the front and back-end codebases and updated database schemas.
Beyond cleaning up the codebase itself, we emphasized the importance of using a development and deployment process that exceeds industry standards. Together, we implemented a two-review-required pull request (PR) review system with protected branches to prevent individual users from pushing to them without making a PR. To improve communication and increase momentum, we restructured sprint commitments into Revelry’s lean agile model.
What began as an unorganized set of numerous branches without reviews, approvals, or version control became a unified process for growing the product. Along the way, we consistently created documentation to make things easier for ourselves and for any future developer to work on the application. Now, the MediaKits team can quickly understand a feature request, work with product owners to understand the simplest version to build, and make this update to the app as soon as possible.
The Solution
Engineering Features for a Growing Product
The Revelry team partnered with MediaKits to develop new features to meet the company’s growing needs. Highlights include:
- Implemented a version of “pro” functionality to monetize the app
- Refactored codebase to support multiple media kits per user
- Implemented a beta version of “Agency” functionality to increase user base
- Created Tiktok and Twitch social media platform integrations
- Automated syncing of data from users’ social media connections
- Implemented a tool to record and aggregate user bugs automatically to detect pain points for users
“With other partners, there have been so many times when code reviews fail over little things, or obvious design decisions weren’t implemented because someone was simply trying to get their job done and go home. But that was not the case with the team at Revelry. Their people were asking questions and going above and beyond any time they could. Hands down, the best and most enjoyable product managers and developers I’ve ever worked with. Dream team.”
– Trevor Austin, Senior Engineer, MediaKits
The Results
A Partnership Accelerating Growth
After five months of teaming up with Revelry, MediaKits grew exponentially, from fewer than 1,000 users to more than 15,000.
The product is now monetized, full of feature enhancements, and has a documented process to make onboarding future developers easy. With this technical foundation, MediaKits is ready to continue growing and supporting creators around the world.
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