First things first, introducing our new logo! 🥁

Honestly, it’s way more than just a logo. What we want is for all our designs, our branding, every single word written, and every Co.Lab event you attend to reflect our core values.

When you think of us (Co.Lab, Sefunmi and I), we want you to feel:

Empowered:
A reminder that you already have the skills, motivation and capability to achieve your dreams.

Valued:
Approachable, inviting, and genuine. There are no stupid questions here.

Trust:
We are dedicated and professional; trust us to put in 150% to go above and beyond.

Amongst friends:
Friendliness across our culture, teamwork, collaboration… really showcasing the power of we!

So now you know our goals! We’d love to know how we’re doing - let us know! 🎉 We’re also releasing our new website soon so get excited!!!

Now, for a Demo Day 🚀 recap!

We hosted the Co.Lab Demo Day for our Fall 2020 cohort this past Saturday! Our motivated Product Managers, Designers, and Developers came together for an opportunity to showcase their products and their learnings on working collaboratively. They were also able to get direct feedback from industry leaders. It’s absolutely a time of celebration; everyone coming together to recognize the hard work and learnings of our Co.Laborators (or Co.Labbies for short!).

While we don’t have a recording of the event, keep scrolling to see a directory and recorded pitches of shipped products at the end of this post! 👇

A huge thanks to our judges (and mentors!!)

Honestly, Demo Day would not have been the great day that it was without the participation and feedback of our judges - all amazing leaders within their disciplines!

So a huge thank you for dedicating time and giving such excellent (and actionable) feedback!

But frankly, without our lovely product mentors and discipline mentors, there wouldn’t be a Demo Day to begin with! So a huge thank you again to Debbie, Orko, Brooke, Jackie, Tyler, Niveah, Anthony, Hirsch and Ajit!

But mainly… congratulations Co.Labbies of Fall 2020!

So Sefunmi and I established Co.Lab with two things in mind:

1. We learn best by doing.

Getting that hands-on, practical experience in really stepping into the role is critical as a PM, designer, or developer. That’s the exact type of immersion and experience we benefit from the most in terms of learning.

2. We do our best work as a (product) team.

As a PM, you can ideate all you want and pump out specs, but you need people to buy into your proposal and vision. As a designer, you need your PM to center the personas and goals, and your developer to really make it into a tangible product. And as a developer, you can make things (and decide how to make them), though how do you know what to make for maximum impact? Teamwork makes the dream work.

And with these two tenets in mind, we developed Co.Lab.

I’m sure it sounds like a lot, because it is a lot. It’s not easy being thrown into a group setting with strangers, and expected to learn and execute at the same time. While balancing everything else happening in life. It’s tough. Our Co.Laborators got it done though (of course with bumps along the way), and that warrants a huge congratulations! 👏 👏 👏

We hope that our Co.Laborators know that regardless of where they are in their career journeys and what their goals are, we, Co.Lab will be here to support them along the way. ❤️ Go take a look at what they’ve shipped he full list of shipped products are at the bottom of this post!

When is the next cohort and how can I sign up!? 🙋🏻‍♀️

Our next cohort dates are:

🗓 Spec.Lab (PM-only): January 30 - February 13

🗓 Co.Lab (PM + Designer + Dev): February 19 - March 27

Applications officially open next week on a rolling basis for acceptances. We will have more details in next week’s post - including for mentors!

For interested Product Managers:
Whether you’re a complete beginner, a recent Bootcamp graduate, or an active PM looking to upskill, we have all that you need in terms of both the theory and putting that theory to practice.

For interested Designers & Developers:
As a dev or designer, we do ask that you have some experience, so if you’re a complete beginner, the best time to join us is after you’ve done some learning on your own! If you have Bootcamp or industry equivalent experience, you’re at the right place with Co.Lab!

Have more questions? Ask us live by signing up for a webinar! The next one is upcoming Tuesday!

Anyhow, this has been a lot, so we’ll end it here! Don’t want to miss the announcements? Stay updated through our socials! And let us know what you think!

Never forget, you belong in tech. ✨

Fall 2020 Product Launches 🔧

• Reclaim - A time tracker to help students improve their digital well-being and understand where they spend time online.
• Teachr - A product to help teachers mark spoken assessments fairly and quickly so that they can lighten their loads.
• Sidekick - An application that helps working professionals build strong and meaningful personal relationships.
• Scape- A product to help create a seamless experience when creating a travel itinerary. Oranga - a digital wellness platform that optimizes mental wellbeing through personalized self-guided routines, providing early-stage professionals with the confidence and consistency to mitigate burnout.
• Kiddie’s Helper - A platform to help busy parents engage their kids whilst working remotely from home.
• 911+ - A product that lets you call emergency and non-emergency services based on your current location (country). Presenting the contact details of the local services in a user-friendly manner to save as much time as possible in the middle of an emergency. Additionally, to prevent users from calling emergency services for non-emergencies.
• Cookr - A meal application that aims to clear the confusion when figuring out what to eat by providing curated suggestions to individuals based on the time of the day and time availability he/she has to cook.
• Phoenix - A product to help companies that are transforming organic waste into other goods and services, source and collect food waste from businesses that produce large amounts of food waste as a result of their operations.

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