007 / WORK / FOR A CLIENT

BACKGROUND SCREENING / CONSUMER, VICTORIA BC

MyCRC: a national criminal record check product, rebuilt from a broken WordPress funnel into a business that pays for itself.

MyCRC is Certn's one-stop shop for criminal record checks in Canada, used by people applying for jobs, volunteer roles and licences. The application had been built on WordPress, performance had fallen away and every step was leaking applicants. We rebuilt it from scratch with our full team, then stayed on to run product, growth and SEO.

The short version

ProductSelf-serve Canadian criminal record checks, $64.99, results in as little as 15 minutes
What we didProduct strategy and roadmap, full rebuild, payments, biometric ID verification, consent capture, analytics, SEO, paid ads
StatusLive, with us running the roadmap
MYCRC / DESKTOP
9:41
MOBILE
ShapeBuildLaunchRun

01 / THE PROBLEM

A good product, trapped in a funnel that was losing people at every step.

MyCRC lets a person run their own Canadian criminal record check online. A police partner searches the Canadian Police Information Centre and other police databases, and the result comes back by email, often within 15 minutes. It is powered by CertnCentric, the screening technology of Certn, the Victoria company that has grown into one of the largest background check providers in the country.

The consumer funnel had not kept up. It was a WordPress based application, performance had declined, support tickets were climbing and the paid campaigns that fed it were no longer paying back. Taylor had spent years on the operating side of screening before the studio, so we could see where the leaks were before we opened the analytics.

02 / WHAT WE BUILT

The whole thing, from scratch, with our full team on it.

We put every part of the studio on this one: product strategy and a roadmap of quick wins, then a complete rebuild of the application by our development team. The new funnel handles the questionnaire, regulated consent capture, biometric identity verification, payment and analytics, and hands the search to the police partner. Kickoff to live took nine weeks.

Then the roadmap. We repositioned the product to compete as the leading consumer criminal record check in Canada, restored the profitability of the paid campaigns, implemented an SEO strategy for the searches people actually make before applying for a job, and opened alternative revenue streams so the business did not depend on one channel.

  • Application flow, consent capture and biometric ID verification rebuilt end to end
  • Payments at $64.99 per check, with the receipt, refund policy and delivery rules built in
  • Analytics on every step, reviewed weekly to tune the funnel
  • Product roadmap with quick wins first, then positioning, SEO and new revenue
  • Support volume cut by around 80 percent as the failure points disappeared
The How it works section of mycrc.ca, showing the questionnaire, the police database search and results in minutes.
FIG 01 / How it works, mycrc.ca

03 / THE NEW FUNNEL

Four steps the applicant sees. A lot more underneath.

Switch between what the applicant sees and what runs underneath each step.

Questionnaireconsent, basic details, a few minutes
Identitya photo of ID and a selfie
Payment$64.99, one page
Reportresults by email, often within 15 minutes
Step details as published on mycrc.ca. Reports cannot be used as vulnerable sector checks.

04 / THE RESULTS

Profitable within weeks. Better every week since.

Conversion rose 50 percent in the first month after release. The step that had leaked the most lost 60 percent fewer people. Within weeks the product was clearing $3,000 in operating profit on single days while the paid campaign was still capped by budget, and the client moved 95 percent of its paid traffic onto the new build by its own choice. Over the first six months the work returned roughly five times what it cost.

Because we run our own screening product, The Great Renter, we knew that consent and identity were where applicants get nervous and leave. Getting those two steps to feel like a two minute task rather than a compliance exercise did more for conversion than anything else we changed.

The MyCRC mobile homepage, with the Start your check now button and review badges from Capterra and the BBB.
FIG 02 / The mobile entry point, where most of the paid traffic lands

05 / WHAT IT TAUGHT US

A funnel is a product. Run it like one.

The rebuild was the visible part. The return came from treating the funnel as a product with a roadmap, an owner and a weekly review, instead of a website that gets fixed when it breaks. That is the service we now describe as a fractional product team, and MyCRC is where we proved it.

R / RESULTS

What it adds up to.

50%Higher conversion in the first month after release
~80%Reduction in support volume once the broken steps were gone
5xReturn on the investment in the first six months of development
9 weeksKickoff to live, including payments, biometric ID verification and regulated consent capture
Reported by the client and measured in product analytics. Round figures.

P / WHO WORKED ON IT

The people behind the build.

001Portrait of Taylor MartinTaylor MartinPartner / product and go-to-marketWrote the roadmap, ran the paid campaigns and the weekly funnel review, and set the positioning.LinkedIn
002Portrait of Charley BallantyneCharley BallantynePartner / technology and deliveryLed the rebuild: application flow, payments, identity verification, consent capture and analytics.LinkedIn

Meet the whole team

L / WHERE TO SEE IT

See it for yourself.

mycrc.caThe product, pricing and FAQ
CertnThe Victoria screening company behind MyCRC
Certn on the BC Business Entrepreneur of the Year listProfile of co-founders Andrew McLeod and Owen Madrick
Canadian Police Information CentreThe national database searched by police partners

09 / NEXT

Tell us what you're trying to build.

Thirty minutes, no deck, no pitch. We'll tell you what we'd do, roughly what it takes, and whether we're the right people for it. Sometimes the answer is no and that's a useful call too.