In 2019, long before the pandemic outbreak, a mystery client came to me with a quest to validate some ideas. One of them caught my attention immediately. It looked like an exciting and fun journey.

In the not-so-big land encompassing a great diversity of landscapes, Switzerland, a vast problem arose. The evil traffic jams overruled the nation, due to limited space for road infrastructures, and the number of cars used daily to commute. The solution was said to be an app, that would join the forces of common folks to carpool and save the land (and the planet, why not?).

The quest began. On my way, I found several apps fighting with the evil forces at the time. I’ve visited a lot of them trying to find their strengths and weaknesses. One of them was particularly strong, with its ready-to-rent army of cars. With high hopes, but a little uncertain of the costs, I moved to action.

In a sideroad tavern, I’ve found a few brave personas dedicated to fighting the odds. The odds which I assessed with the mighty power of SWOT. I determined the needs of the folks and the economy of my undertaking. So far, nothing clearly indicated its unfortunate outcome. I created many attack plans and settled on the MVP state of my army. Since that day, the prototypes started to emerge. Finally, I gave my army a name and an emblem.

Suddenly, the strongest app declared its withdrawal from the fight. The messenger announced that the folks are not as aware of the situation as we all thought, therefore the economic aspect is going down. It was a chance for my army to lead. But a little concerned, I started asking questions. Is the fight worth fighting for? Do we have enough funds to change people’s minds? The battle came suddenly and hard. We were defeated but thanks to the magic of UX, we survived to fight another day. On another battlefield.