Using design thinking to accelerate customer discovery
“Optimistic entrepreneurs earn less”, says a study conducted by researchers at the University of Bath, Cardiff University, and the London…
“Optimistic entrepreneurs earn less”, says a study conducted by researchers at the University of Bath, Cardiff University, and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Startup ideas are unlikely to hit the bull’s eye on the first attempt. Even the mighty Steve Jobs had to pivot on his post-Apple exit — venture NeXT.
Entrepreneurs must stay curious about discovering customer needs at speed driven by the urgency of burn rate, a proverbial gun to their head. Design thinking facilitates attempts to reduce new product risk by accelerating learning through rapid prototyping.
However, rapid prototyping without a planned approach may not yield meaningful results. It’s easy to move fast without getting anywhere. Busy-ness doesn’t guarantee achievement of goals. Deciding upfront on how to validate if the design sprint result is in the right direction is a crucial step to succeed in the process.
Hypothesis-driven experimentation, inspired by scientists, provides an excellent framework to define the validation upfront. At the beginning of a startup, an entrepreneur deals with so much ambiguity that the sheer number of desirability, feasibility, and viability assumptions might overwhelm them.
“DHM” product strategy comes to the rescue here. Gibson Biddle, former CPO of Netflix, recommends startups focus on the “Delight” aspect of the strategy instead of “Hard to copy” and “Margin enhancing.”
Desirability hypotheses focuses on validating if there are enough customers who want the value proposition. You can use the value proposition or business model canvas to generate these hypotheses.
We believe that we — —
are addressing jobs that matter the most to the customers?
are focused on pains that matter to the customers?
are focused on the gains that matter to the customers?
are targeting the right customer segments
have the correct value propositions for the customer segments we are targeting
Prioritize the hypotheses using the evidence vs. importance matrix and pick the most impactful ones. Define the criteria that help you validate or invalidate the hypotheses.
Use these hypotheses and criteria to validate/invalidate as the scope for the design sprint prototyping. Once the prototype is ready, use these hypotheses to define the buyer/user test interview questionnaire. Document the findings for future reference.
Rely on your confidence in the test results to decide a path ahead — persevere or pivot or kill.
References: