In the article, Varun recounts how the initial idea an app that could help users discover things about themselves even they didn’t even know, allowing them to fine-tune their careers. But the tool designed to help users grow first had to evolve itself. Ideas, programmers and target audiences have all come and gone. The SLP Fellow’s crew first tried that direct-to-consumer thing, but quickly learned that creating – and monetizing – a self-assessment app for the individual user wasn’t easy. Next they tried to develop an app that would help university employees and students along the career-development path, but “that wasn’t a great option either,” Mehta noted, since universities, more than most end users, are set in their ways and “not keen to change fast.” Disqovery was next reimagined as an app designed specifically for career coaches, something “that would make it easier to have constructive career-building conversations,” Mehta said. But that was a fairly small market, he added, and it turns out many career coaches have an aversion to new technologies – specifically, anything that prevents them from “scheduling more one-on-on time and billing more hours.”

Working directly with companies seemed the way to go. An app that could help employers encourage staff development was valuable all around – employers could update their ineffective career-development protocols and employees could learn exactly what makes them tick, professionally. That, essentially, is the gist of the Disqovery app now concluding its beta run. Promising a “bite-sized and fun way” of helping professionals better understand themselves, the app – available for all mobile devices – eschews the traditional, often-dry career-development path for an irreverent, slightly silly and much deeper modern spin. The entire article can be read over here, and you can have a look at the app’s website over here. Connect with Varun at varun@disqovery.com.

(Tushar Gidwani, SLP Intern)