Alicia Lee

Ten Thousand Coffees

Designing a Structured Networking Experience
to Retain an Enterprise Client

Scope
Enterprise SaaS platform used by large organizations to facilitate mentoring, networking, and knowledge sharing among employees.

Project Goal
Design a new product capability that would allow enterprise clients to facilitate more structured networking between specific groups of employees, a need that the existing platform could not support.The project was initiated because a major enterprise client was considering leaving the platform, and solving this problem was critical to retaining their business.

Outcome
The final solution successfully addressed the client's needs and helped secure their renewal with Ten Thousand Coffees.

  • Role: Lead Product Designer (Solo Senior)

  • Timeline: 2 months

  • Impact: 100% Client Retention; 800+ seats secured

  • Stakeholders: Reported to VP of Design; Partnered with CTO, CSM’s & Product Manager

The Challenge

The Problem: 10KC’s "Networking" program was a "black box"—it was company-wide, automated, and had no user interface. Our largest client needed the opposite: a highly organized, hub-specific way for employees to connect. If we couldn't provide this level of granularity, we risked losing their business for the upcoming year.

The "Impossible" Mandate: The leadership team was transparent: "This solution doesn't exist. We need you to figure out how it works, how it looks, and how to build it before the contract expires."

The Constraints:

  • Zero UI Foundation: Networking had no existing screens to iterate on.

  • The Clock: We had 60 days to move from "concept" to "functioning feature."

  • Technical Debt: We couldn't afford a total platform rebuild.

The Strategy

To solve this, I conducted a deep-dive competitor analysis and interviewed our Customer Success Managers (CSMs) to map out every "must-have" for the client.

The Pivot: I was faced with two paths.

  • Option A: Build a brand-new Networking UI from scratch.

  • Option B: Redesign the existing Mentorship framework to support Networking features.

I advocated for Option B to the CTO. Based on my research, this wasn't just the faster route—it was the most scalable. By leveraging our existing Mentorship infrastructure, we could present a functional solution before the contract expired while creating a template that could be sold to future enterprise clients.

"I convinced the leadership team that by 'doing surgery' on our current organs rather than building new ones, we could deliver a high-value product that felt familiar to users but functioned with entirely new power."

Approach 2 diagram

Craft & Execution

Design Principle: Radical Familiarity When introducing major platform changes under a tight deadline, you cannot afford a learning curve. I focused on a "Drawer" UI pattern within the existing Schedule view.

Repeat this program toggle on determines that it is a networking program

Key Design Decisions:

  • The Hybrid Drawer: I integrated networking settings into the Mentorship drawer. This allowed Admins to toggle "Networking Logic" (automated pairings) within a UI they already trusted.

  • High-Fidelity Documentation: Because the timeline was so aggressive, I maintained "living" Figma files. This allowed our developers to begin back-end implementation on finalized logic while I was still polishing the micro-interactions.

  • Logic Simplification: I translated complex technical constraints (like Hub-specific filtering) into simple, human-readable toggles.

Outcomes & Impact

The Result: The client was not only retained but was so impressed by the speed of delivery that they became a primary case study for our sales team.

The Numbers:

  • 1,000+ Seats Secured: 100% renewal of a major enterprise account.

  • Scalability: What started as a "one-off" fix was integrated into the core 10KC product offering for all future enterprise clients.

  • CSM Sentiment: Following multiple user testing sessions, the CSM team reported that the solution was so intuitive it required "near-zero" re-education for the client admins.

Final Reflection: This project taught me that at the senior level, design isn't just about pixels, it's about business survival. By balancing technical constraints with user needs, we saved a multi-million dollar relationship and evolved the product's DNA in the process.