Alicia Lee

Ten Thousand Coffees

Designing a Structured Networking Experience
to Retain an Enterprise Client

Company
Ten Thousand Coffees (10KC)

Role
Lead Product Designer (Solo Senior)

Timeline
2 months

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

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.

Impact
- 100% client retention (1,000+ seats secured)
- Preserved trust with a top enterprise client and protected recurring revenue
- Introduced a scalable framework later adopted across the platform
- Delivered a solution requiring near-zero retraining for client admins

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.

Understanding the Programs

10KC offers two core ways for employees to connect:

  • Networking Program
    Designed for spontaneous, casual connections. Employees are randomly paired across the company for informal conversations, with no control over who they’re matched with.

  • Mentorship Program
    A structured experience where employees are intentionally paired (mentor + mentee) and follow a guided schedule with defined goals.

Key Difference:
Networking is random and unstructured, while mentorship is intentional and configurable.

Approach 2 diagram

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.

  • Approach 1: Build a brand-new Networking UI from scratch.

  • Approach 2: Redesign the existing Mentorship framework to support Networking features.

I advocated for approach 2 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."

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 was added into the normal mentorship user experience to let it be used as 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.