Full Cup was birthed from our own experience and experience of others’ that seemed to come to a peak with the coming of the pandemic. Worker burnout is increasing, with 73% of professionals in 2020 reporting that they are feeling it. Burnout at work can lead to depression, anxiety and resentment and it bleeds into every area of your life. Unfortunately, the way of the world today demands a lot from those who don’t always have a lot to give. We can’t go to every company and lighten the workload, but we can try and help people manage their work-life balance more.

So how can we do that? Initial interviews showed that busy people, who are usually approaching burnout, use their calendars frequently. Meetings go there, dinner plans go there, and other peoples’ meetings and dinner plans go there. It helps them to stay on track and have everything in one place. But while it’s easy for them to plan the things related to work, their free time between work can often turn into more work. We want to help them utilize that free time and turn it into me-time.

Interviews also showed that users had tried apps in this space but they were confusing and overwhelming. Too many clicks and too many “extras” that it made them feel it wasn’t worth it. They required something that didn’t disrupt their routine too much and didn’t require them to be even more glued to their devices.

Full Cup focuses on self-care and everything that isn’t work. Recurring events for health & fitness, nutrition, mindfulness and more can be easily scheduled via the app and dropped right into the users’ primary calendar. It takes away having to schedule every little thing, but it still gets scheduled. Since notifications, and events go into a more-used calendar, users don’t have to be totally reliant on the app. They’re still able to have use for it and log activities completed and how refreshed they feel. Think of it as a personal assistant that solely wants you to focus on you.

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Who is Full Cup for?

Full Cup is for Peyton. Peyton is a 33-year-old digital content creator. Peyton lives her life on her phone. It's where she works, it's how she connects with her friends, it's how she lives. She's been working for herself as a freelance content creator for the past 5 years and lives somewhere different every year. It's important to her to plan her schedule meticulously. She works across timezones and is always hustling. Planning work and meetings leave her with little time for herself. Peyton is looking for a product that keeps her accountable and is easy to use while being visually peaceful.

It is important for the designs in Full Cup to maintain a more neutral color theme and layout. Research showed us that many apps in the self-care space leaned more towards targeting women, and it was really apparent. Since self-care is a right for all, it was vital that this product could appeal to everyone. Simple, calming, and inviting.

Learnings

Product Manager Learnings:

Jenita Richards

Co.Lab was my first time in a PM setting at all, so everything was a learning experience for me. I learned how quickly what you have in mind and what the customer needs can not line up, and will have to change. It’s so easy to go too big when it’s important to focus on more specific features and scopes. I learned how important it is for the PM to have a strong point of view for the customer, and be able to share that point of view where it means something to designers and developers. All of these people think in such different ways and it’s important to get them all on the same page through different means.

Designer Learnings:

Priyanka Khanijow

The biggest learning for me has been working in cross-functional teams, but also understanding what to prioritize and what to focus on. As a designer, when you create designs you‘re thinking of the users but I have not always understood how it would affect the development side of it. So understanding the user and prioritizing the feature but making it easy to execute for engineering has been the biggest learning.

Designer Learnings:

Jo Sturdivant

Adapting to an Established Team: Joining the team in week 6 of 8 was challenging, as I had to quickly adapt to existing workflows, dynamics, and goals. This mirrors real-world situations where you often integrate into teams mid-project, and flexibility is essential.
Work-Blocking for Efficiency: With only two weeks to complete the project, I learned the importance of a structured work-blocking system. This approach allowed me to manage my time effectively and meet deadlines under pressure.
Making Data-Driven Design Decisions: Unlike my past projects, I had to rely on research conducted by others. This was a valuable experience in using pre-existing data to guide design decisions, helping me focus on the core insights without starting from scratch.

Developer Learnings:

Joshua

I gained a better appreciation of the product development process from more of a user’s point of view rather than a developer’s. Since it was my first time implementing designs by someone else, I learned a lot about this whole process and gained an even greater appreciation for it. I learned a lot about Google’s authentication workflows and using the Calendar API.

From my peer group, I really gained a better appreciation of the adaptability and versatility of developers: many of us at Co.Lab have had to quickly learn to use tech we had never used before.

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Developer Learnings:

Vanady Beard

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As the back-end developer, I learned how important it is to create efficient and reliable systems that support the entire application. This experience also taught me the importance of optimising the database and ensuring the backend is scalable and easy to maintain.

Developer Learnings:

Stephen Asiedu

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As a back-end developer, I've come to understand the importance of being familiar with various database systems and modules. This knowledge enables me to build diverse applications and maintain versatility in my work. I've also learned that the responsibility for making the right choices rests on my shoulders, guided by my best judgement.

Developer Learnings:

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Developer Learnings:

Maurquise Williams

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Process of Creating an MVP: Developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) taught me how to focus on delivering core functionalities balancing between essential features and avoiding scope creep.
Collaboration in a Real-World Tech Setting: This experience taught me how to collaborate efficiently in a fast-paced tech environment, keeping the team aligned and productive, even while working remotely across time zones.
Sharpening Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills: This experience honed my ability to think critically and solve problems efficiently. By tackling challenges and finding quick solutions, I sharpened my decision-making and troubleshooting skills in a dynamic, real-world setting.

Developer Learnings:

Jeremiah Williams

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All in all this experience was very awesome I learned that in coding with others being transparent is key

Developers Learnings:

Justin Farley

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I learned how important communication is when working with a team. Communication provides understanding, advice, ideas, and much more. While working with the product team, I’ve found that communication keeps everything flowing smoothly. Working with a team also showed me that every member brings something different to the table and we all have to work together in order to align and meet our end goal.

Full Team Learning

As a team, we learned how important it is to communicate well with each other. We all got on easily quite quickly and are in similar time zones so that was a huge benefit to us. But even with that there were conversations that we’d leave and follow up in Discord or Trello like “By x did you mean y or z?” and would have to hop on another call or follow up to make things super clear. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the excitement and really want to flex what you’ve learned by forcing things to stick on a wall, but you learn it’s more important to let go and get realistic.