Most people tend to take a product-centric innovation approach, i.e.:

1. Build a great product that people love
2. Figure out how much they are willing to pay for it
3. Figure out where your clients hang out and market to them

It looks like Model is an afterthought and Channel is the middle child that no one pays attention to (I can say that because I am one ), but there is more than that to these two spaces.

Lets not even touch product for now. There is so much said and done that I would rather concentrate on the other two which are often overlooked as opportunities for disruptive innovation.

Model

Most innovation in this space is about charging less, but some excellent cases prove that it is not just about price. 

Let's take Spotify as an example. 
 

When they entered the market, the dominant player was iTunes. If you compared what you could actually do with the two products, you would see that they were very similar. You can play a song, create a playlist, pause, skip and so on. The "UX" was the same. But the Model, and the streaming technology that made it possible, was entirely different. It was the model innovation that disrupted the market and eventually forced the top-grossing company in the world to accept defeat, change its way and replicate the competition.

Now, to be able to replicate this Model innovation, you need to understand why was this Model was disruptive and so desirable.

Ok, here is where I say something controversial.
Most of the analysis I read about this case tells the same old story about Generation Z: "Gen Z cares about the experience and not about owning anything. People in Gen Z don't care about owning things."... I don't think that's true, not least because lots of people spanning many generations Spotify, and Gen Z people are not necessarily anti-ownership. 

You might think it's all about the price point, but that's simply not the case. On average, we actually spend more money on Spotify than we did on iTunes.

The answer is getting the job done cheaper. I know it sounds like price but bear with me because getting into the nitty-gritty of this can give you an edge. 
 
First, we need to understand WHY people use the product. In Jobs To Be Done theory people don't want songs, they want to achieve an outcome. Now stop. Be honest. When you select a playlist and play music, what are you trying to do?

I am confident in saying that most of us don't want songs per se, we want to set a mood with music. 

To do so, we need to discover new music and in iTunes, to discover new music you had to mortgage the house – and this weakness was a huge opportunity for innovation. 
 
This is why the Spotify discovery playlist was so successful. For the first time in people's lives, they had a tool that allowed them to discover new music beyond radio. And if we at it, what radio really lacks is the personalization and convenience of choosing the mood you want to set, and the niche genre in which you want to discover more music. 

 This is why being featured in these playlists is the way to market for artists that want to make it in Spotify.

So, to replicate this type of Model innovation success, you must:

1) Identify the outcome your customers are trying to achieve, e.g. set a mood with music.
2) Identify what part of getting that outcome is difficult, time-consuming or expensive, e.g. discovering new artists.
3) Explore Models that can make that pain go away, making the satisfaction of that "need" more convenient and accessible for users.

Channel
This one is by far the most obscure of innovation, so I am going to use one case only, but if you are interested, do check out this other post with lots more material.

Let's look at the ALS ice-bucket challenge. 
 
If you look at Product and Channel on this one, you will see a perfect fit. In this Product, when you pour a bucket full of ice water over your head, you earn the right to nominate three other friends to go through the same ordeal and make a donation. The Channel is viral referral on social media. You would post the video of you doing the deed and request the nominees to do the same. In this case, the Product and Channel are working in total harmony, supporting each other to create growth. The videos on social keep people accountable, and it's a great way to communicate that you have nominated someone and generate virality. It's the product feature "nomination" that makes the social Channel so powerful.

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​People often say building a successful startup is all about execution. Well, there is no execution without focus, because you simply can't do everything on a startup budget. 

At the same time, you can't have a startup with small ambitions; you need to have big dreams and a big vision.

So you are left trying to boil the ocean with a small 1-litre kettle.

This is why we created our Venture Roadmap Framework. This framework allows startup founders to outline their Vision and then define the three major steps to get there. We call this defining your NOW, NEXT & FUTURE, and if you are a startup founder, this can help you achieve focus, preserve runway but still deliver on a big vision.

Let's see the NNF in action with a company we all know, and maybe the document that gave birth to our concept.

A great example of NNF is Tesla's "The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan" written and shared to the world by Tesla's CEO Elon Musk. 

In that document, Elon showcases his Now, Next & Future roadmap. Elon explains how he used his first product, the very expensive Roadster as a way to bankroll the R&D and asset investment needed to create a performing yet affordable family car that will take on any petrol or diesel car in performance and range. 

He starts the Tesla story focusing on a high ticket product for a handful of people. He takes one problem at a time, develops the technology and implementing it on a small number (relatively of course) of units that can be sold for a big-ticket price. 

On the back of the Roadster's success, he then focuses his attention on scale and affordability, making investments in bigger plants that can maximise throughput and reduce cost.

This will allow him to get to market with a family car that can go head to head with any fossil fuel model. This car will combine affordability, performance and sustainability to deliver a product that will sunset the fossil fuel car, ultimately delivering his Vision of the future. 

Let's take a look at the NNF

Now: A sports car company creating high ticket items for a handful of clients willing to pay to have the first electric supercar. 

Next: A car company building high-performance long-range electric vehicles for the conscious consumer willing to pay extra for performance and sustainability.

Future: A car company building affordable family cars that outperform fossil fuel cars in range and performance. 

The question remains if you are a startup founder, do you have a master plan? 

What is your Roadster?

What is the solution for the "Now" that will allow you to deliver your Vision?

A way to get to the answer is to use the following technique. I will be using the Tesla example, so you get the idea and can follow along:

1) Define your Vision of the future: To do this, I would recommend using Jobs To Be Done to understand your customer and what they are trying to achieve. Then combine this concept with what your startup aspires to achieve at a macro level. This is key to building a genuinely aspirational vision that is product and platform agnostic. You can read more about this here.

Tesla: Sunset the fossil fuel car to expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy. 

2) With a clear vision, ask yourself: what is needed to deliver on that Vision? To do that I would recommend using the Four Fits framework, where you can explore the market segment, product, channel and model that can help you to achieve that. Read about the Four Fit model here.

Tesla: An affordable electric family car that rivals fossil fuel cars in performance and range and can be produced at scale.

3) Ok, now that we know what we need to deliver the Vision of the future let's take a look at the challenges to get there. List all of the major challenges you see today, which must be overcome to be able to deliver the statement you prepared above. I would recommend going back again to your Four Fit model to ask yourself what aspects or features of your solution are particularly hard to deliver.

Tesla: When it comes to Tesla, there are clearly three major challenges to achieve "An affordable electric family car that rivals fossil fuel cars in performance and range and can be produced at scale." In this case, they were are all product-related, i.e. a) The technology was not there. Electric cars had not the performance nor the range of their fossil fuel counterparts, b) Even if you could advance the technology to match the performance and range this car would be expensive (particularly the battery), and c) Finally, the sheer scale of mass production would be a major challenge too. You need to produce electric cars at scale – something never done by any manufacturer before.

So the challenges are:

a) Advance the technology to make it comparable in performance and range to the fossil fuel car

b) Make that technology affordable

c) Build electric cars at scale

4) Study ways in which you can create focus by concentrating on one thing at a time. Then put the challenges into sequential order and weigh the options – which one should come first?

Tesla: in this case, it is clear that the way forward is: R&D for performance -> R&D for range -> Increase affordability -> produce at scale

5) For each stage or challenge, define a different venture that will allow you to overcome the challenge and the metamorphosis to the next.

Now: A sports car company creating high ticket items for a handful of clients willing to pay to have the first electric supercar. (no need for affordability or scale)

Next: A car company building high-performance long-range electric vehicles for the conscious consumer willing to pay extra for performance and sustainability. (no need for scale)

Future: A car company building affordable family cars that outperform fossil fuel cars in range and performance. (All in)

Each company is different, and the success of each of them enables the next one to exist.

This is how building an electric supercar for the rich allowed Elon to develop a business that is now more valuable than any other car manufacturer in the world. 

One of the reasons Tesla is worth what it is without making a penny in profit is because it has a plan to unlock exponential value, and year after year they deliver on their promise, getting one step closer to their Vision of the future.

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The elusive Product-Market Fit (PMF) - the holy grail of early-stage startups. 

Every product conversation I have these days centres on the elusive PMF goal and how to get there. Don't get me wrong - PMF is an absolute must but it isn’t the only fit you need to have, at least when it comes to Product.

An excellent way to see this is as follows: 

Your Product is immersed in a market. Everyone’s clear on that.
At the same time, however, that same Product is also immersed in a Channel. In other words, the primary Channel you are or will be using to distribute your product/acquire users is one of the most important environments your Product will be immersed in. 
Let me use a simple analogy; let's say a 4x4 is the Product. This 4x4 is designed to cross deserts. As a result, it is big, with an enormous fuel tank and large wheels. I am going to go as far as to say that this 4x4 is perfect for the desert. It is a perfect fit for it.

Now, let's just say there is a big market of people trying to get across the desert. This market is underserved and eagerly looking for a new solution. We need to get on and sell it.

In order to sell this vehicle, the manufacturer decides to use existing dealerships that also sell other 4x4 vehicles like Land Rover and Jeep because it makes it very cost-effective to acquire leads and close deals. But there is a catch; there is always a catch. This vehicle is so big, so tremendous it just does not fit inside a normal dealership. The distribution channel is simply not able to accommodate the Product. In this case, this great Product is not fit for the Channel selected.

You are now being forced to change your Channel, but who wants to go back to the drawing board on a 4x4 that is totally fit for purpose with a massive market that is underserved? Well, let me take it to the extreme. What if I told you that the only place you can cost-effectively acquire leads for the 4x4 is through the dealerships. All other channels you have explored are simply not working or too expensive. Prospects must see the vehicle in person in that environment before they will make the purchase.

At this point you would be left with no other choice but to go back to the drawing board to change your Product, not only to be a fit for the desert (your market) but also for the dealership (your Channel).

The point that I want to make is that the Channel you plan to use to bring your Product to Market is not a marketing afterthought. You don't design a product and then find a way to sell it. The Channel you plan to use provides design constraints that your product MUST adhere to. 

Let me use now a more typical example that is not made up. 

Let's look at the ALS ice-bucket challenge. If you look at Product and Channel on this one, you will see a perfect fit. In this Product, when you pour a bucket full of ice water over your head, you earn the right to nominate three other friends to go through the same ordeal and make a donation. The Channel is viral referral on social media. You would post the video of you doing the deed and request the nominees to do the same. In this case, the Product and Channel are working in total harmony, supporting each other to deliver value. The videos on social keep people accountable and it’s a great way to communicate that you have nominated someone and generate virality. It’s the product feature “nomination” that makes the social Channel so powerful.

Now, imagine trying to promote the Ice-bucket challenge instead via google Adwords, with no nomination aspect. The product features don't work with, improve or complement the Channel it is immersed in. That is a clear Product-Channel unfit case.

So next time you are thinking product and PMF, take a look at your Channel and ask yourself is my Product fit for my Channel?

If you want to learn more about Product Channel Fit, feel free to contact us!

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Gamification has nothing to do with badges, points or leaderboards per se. It’s not about making it “fun”. It’s not about the way things look.

Ok, then what is gamification about? 

Well let's look a great games to start with, the one things all games have in common is that games put players onto a path of personal development or better yet, personal transformation.

Yes, am going to say that again…

Games put players onto a path of personal transformation. 

In a good game, people develop a skill and the game provides the tools for them to progress in this journey. Please note I have not used the word FUN; having fun is a result of developing a meaningful skill and not an engagement tool in and of itself with lasting stickiness. 

 In other words, FUN is a by-product of games; it is not the reason people keep coming back.
 
So in Game Thinking, Amy Jo Kim, explains it very, very clearly: the only reason people engage with games is that they are developing a skill they consider meaningful. In that same book, Kim goes on to explore the five stages humans go through to develop a skill. This framework shows us how to design products so that they are engaging for users, and keep them coming back. 

In other words, this framework can help you design products that people love. It is not a method; it is not a process but a set of "design principles" that can help you design your solution. Let's explore it.

So remember, the first thing is to define what users are learning in your solution, what skill are they developing? To get to the nitty-gritty of that I would recommend you use Jobs To Be Done, but that is not the core of what I want to explore in this article. You can read more about that here. 

With that done and dusted, let's look at the stages/features your product must have for people to engage. I will use two examples, one straight-forward and one to which you would not have thought these principles apply;

A) Smule; helps people develop their singing skills. If you are not familiar with the game then you should check it out. It is a great example of true gamification. 

B) Couch to 5K; helps people to develop their running skills and develop a habit for it.  

So, the stages are;
You must be able to execute the activity that you are looking to develop yourself in. 
In the case of Smule, you can sing with the app to a backing track. 
In the case of Couch to 5K, it’s the running itself. In this running app, you don't get a map that shows where you run, how long or any of that stuff. What you do get is a coach talking you through the session to motivate you and take you through the exercises. 
You must provide feedback to help the user understand how to get better at the activity. If people don't get feedback, it’s harder to improve, and if they don't improve, you will get poor retention.  
In the case of Smule, when you are singing, you can see what note you are hitting and where it should be. This helps you to sing the right note each time (real-time feedback). 
In the case of Couch to 5K, I think this is the best example to showcase feedback. Here is where the community comes in. Users are encouraged to engage with other users to share and motivate themselves. 
You must showcase the progress you have made. This part is critical for engagement; users will feel intrinsically motivated if they can see progress. This is part of human nature and simple behavioural science. Progress = motivation to do more. 
In the case of Smule, it’s all about the songs you have recorded, the likes you have earned and the number of people following you. You can become famous with your singing.
In the case or Couch to 5K, there is a very structured "running program" - 9 weeks with 3 runs each week. In this way, people can see very quickly where they are and how much progress they've made. More importantly, it sets the framework for sharing feedback and experiences. Using their program progress code W2R1 (week 2 run 1) people can describe where they are, ask for tips and share experiences.
You must have a space where people can "invest" with the objective of personalising your experience and making the activity more pleasurable. This is again key to getting good engagement. The outcome of any investing features must be making that activity more pleasurable/rewarding/fulfilling through personalisation. 
In Smule it is about finding the right songs; hooking up with others for a duet you want to sing and so forth.
In Couch to 5K, you can personalise your app by picking a coach, setting up reminders and so forth.
You must cue up the main activity. Cueing up is not just about an alert or a "push" to get people doing the activity. Cueing is about identifying when it is a good time and setting up the activity. 
In the case of Smule it’s about letting users know there is a new song in the genre they love; that a user they follow has posted a request to duet and so on. It is about showcasing the "opportunity" of singing in the context of building the skill.
In the case of Couch to 5K it’s all about developing the habit. As you set your reminders, you are asked to define a time and visualise when, how, where and in what context you will train. This is a critical behavioural change tactic to increase the probability of a user picking up a habit.
So that is the hidden magic behind "gamification" resulting in good engagement and retention. 

No matter what or how you are doing it, these principles can help you shape your product to ensure engagement and retention.

An excellent exercise you can do is try to map your current proposition on these five stages to see where you are strong and where you could start thinking of new features to support each stage.

The engagement cheat-sheet 

Quick questions you can use to test your product

• What skill are my customers building with my solution?
• How does the solution help them execute the activity? 
• How does the product provide feedback on how users are executing that activity?
• How does the product showcase the progress a user has made in the path to mastering the skill they are learning?
• How does the product allow the user to invest in making their activity more pleasurable/personal?
• How does the product offer relevant, contextual cues that bring the user back in to do the core activity?

If you’d like to discover more about building products people love, get in touch with us!

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I get it; you are lean, you "have ideas", you test, you learn, you change, and you do it again. 

When you take this idea-first approach you: create a hypothesis of struggle, you design a solution, and you go and test it. The issue, of course, is in this process you are changing the problem space and the solution space at the same time. You are constantly throwing things at the wall to see what sticks – with little understanding of the wall itself. 

Moving the problem space and solution space at the same time 

When you take an idea-first approach and work with users in a very exploratory way, you tend to frequently redefine the problem space, if it was defined at all, at the same time as you try to test various solutions to it. To what? Exactly!

Letting users design the solution 

In most cases, people even allow the test subject to "design the solution". Your users may be experts in their own experience of the problem, but it is your job to be the expert in the solution design. 

False reactions 

Most importantly, and to add to the issue, when you show people ideas and ask them how they feel and what they think they are rarely sincere. Not because they have anything against you; it's just human nature, i.e. the way we think we would behave (professed behaviours) is not how we actually do behave outside of test conditions. There's what we think we would do and what we actually do, and for humans, these things do not always align - in fact, they rarely do. This is a basic insight of behavioural science; if you don't trust me, I recommend Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational; nice book, nice guy.

Finally, let me say something that is key to the point and the biggest reason this approach is just not good enough. 

Have you considered the idea that your prospective customer is struggling and in most cases, they don't know why or what is wrong to start with? 

So taking this lean approach, you end up with a product that people think they would like but never use. You go down the "lack of engagement" path and come up with all kinds of excuses for that. The worst is when you end up blaming your users. I once heard a product lead say "My users are just lazy; that's why they are not using the platform." Of course, that is just not true. What he was offering was just not good enough to be worth their time, or in other words, the outcome they are getting by using the product is just not good enough for them.

Turning the approach on its head 

Now let me propose a different approach to start with. Let's turn the lean approach on its head.

Why not LEARN first: nail the problem THEN iterate the solution. 

Sounds great, right? Let me show you how you do that.

The first thing to do is to FORGET YOUR PRODUCT. People don't want your product; they want to achieve an outcome. 

Stop, read that line again, let me re-write it.

People don't want your product, they what to achieve an outcome.

Businesses don't want eCommerce sites; they want to sell their products to prospective clients.

People don't want to take a taxi to the airport; they want to get to the airport on time. 

People don't want a quarter-inch drill bit; they want a quarter-inch hole in the wall.

People don't want your product; accept that. 

Once you have accepted it and only when you have, you can take the Learn-First Approach. 

Concentrate now on the Desired Outcome (Goal) your users are trying to achieve. What do they want to achieve? Talk to users. Determine what they want to achieve first. Talk about how difficult is it for them to achieve that outcome. Talk about how much time they spend trying to achieve that outcome. Talk about how often they do it. Talk about how important it is in their life to achieve that outcome.

You are trying to identify a difficult outcome, which they find necessary and important and that they often try to do.

Remember, keep your product ideas out of the conversation for now. They don't want your product!

Great, you now know what the outcome is ... time to create a product! NO! You still don’t have enough to design a solution. Stay away from the idea space!

Once you have an outcome, you also have a market. Your market is basically everyone struggling to achieve the outcome.

I’m gonna say something controversial now. To get to the bottom of the problem, you need to look outside your target market segment. What you do instead is talk to Masters. Masters are people that understand how to achieve the outcome. They are experts in the field; they know the steps, in what order they need to be followed and the criteria for success. This is the “map” for achieving the outcome. 

Talk to masters, map their process, learn how to achieve the outcome, and become a master yourself. Some people call it “lead user innovation”; I call it “talking to masters.”

Now it’s time to go back to your users. Yes, your target market. Remember, they are struggling. They are not masters; they don't know what's wrong or how to fix it; they only know how they struggle. All they can help you with is their experience. 

Ask them to tell you the story of when they last tried the achieve the outcome, e.g “When was the last time you tried to make a hole in the wall? Tell me all about it.”

Then shut up, grab the master recipe and follow along to determine where they go off track, what they find difficult, or, as in most cases, what they are doing at the wrong time or simply not doing at all - missed steps and success criteria.

Congratulations, you now understand the problem! Now it’s time to use a product design framework to create something that helps people achieve the outcome and is naturally engaging. Read about how to do that here.

If you’d like to discover more about our approach, and super-charging your existing venture building process, get in touch with us!

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Let's start at with the basics. 

What is a startup mentor? A master in the art of entrepreneurship, someone that can guide a newcomer to the field and help them to become a high performer. Of course, there are several types of mentors; some will help you design your business; some will help you grow it, some will connect you to other companies that can help you along the way. In all cases, these people are, as the Italians would say “old sea wolves." Experts in their field that tend to be expensive for startups; by definition, they are unaffordable.

Given that these mentors are so expensive mentor-led venture building programs rely on pro-bono mentors that are keen to help in exchange for kudos. Others go down the route of rewarding mentors with vested equity, but again, the equity offered is minimal, so mentors work with several startups, which makes their time even more scarce. The bottom line is that the reward is just not enough.

This, of course, makes finding the right mentor for each stage, challenge and venture incredibly tricky. Most importantly, keeping mentors accountable and ensuring that they impact the business as intended is virtually impossible.

Now, let's say I take all of that away, and by some miracle, you managed to get access to the best mentors, you can match them to the startups, you can reward them accordingly, and you can keep them accountable…

You are still using a labour-intensive process that cannot scale. There is no way for you to get more startups through the program without compromising either quality or speed. It is clear, at least in my mind that the mentor-led approach to startup building is unequivocally broken by the simple economics of it.

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​It was late in my University studies when I started designing structures and machine parts. On this particular occasion, I was asked to create a structure to support an engine for a ship. I went home and did my math; I was very pleased with my design. When I handed it in, however, I found out I should not have been. 

I had designed an engine support bigger and heavier than the ship itself; it made no sense at all – not in the real world. Truth be told it was a trick exercise, designed to showcase something straightforward. On paper or excel, as that was what we used back in the day, everything makes sense, but, as my professor explained, it is critical when you are working in the "Idea World” to bring with you the "Rules" of the world you are designing for. He explained how paper allows you to build impossible machines that seem to make sense because the constraints of the real world are not part of your design sandbox.

I would never have thought the learning of that lesson would come in handy 20 years later when I was designing ventures for a venture building fund.

In the same way that the engine support design was not applicable in the real world, we realised that in some cases when using the Business Model Canvas the ventures that would come out were just not floating.

I was not that worried at first. I thought "Ok, so we just need to use some common sense on top of this and voila!". But with time, I realised that the challenge was not so much designing ventures that would float but ventures that would win a motorboat race with two small paddles for props.

See, the major issue we found with the BMC is that there are very few, if any, constraints and relationships between each of the quadrants that define the business in the "idea space." Given that these relationships or "fits" don't exist, it is very difficult to vet the design and iterate your business. 

In fact, the relationships and constraints are the key because that is the reason why you design and the reason to iterate and improve. Imagine trying to learn how to play the piano, or even compose music as a person with impaired hearing. It is very hard to get feedback. Beethoven managed it, but he really the exception that proves the rule. 

In the same way, the BMC allows you to design a venture, but it does not give you feedback so that you can improve your design. 

Let me give you an example; in the BMC there is a Value Proposition segment and a Customer segment, but there are no rules to show how aligned or "fit" my Value Proposition is with my Customer Segment. 

Things like:

Does my value proposition help my customer segment to achieve the outcome they desire?

How does my value proposition address the specific unmet needs of my customer segment when trying to achieve that outcome? 

To what extent do the features I have designed make it easier to achieve that outcome?

If you know that you can change your proposition, and can change your segment, you can iterate your venture design. It's that relationship that is the feedback you need to make meaningful changes to your business.

Let's use an example:

Customer Segment: Eskimos

Value Proposition: Our next-generation ice cools down drinks faster than conventional ice.

I know, it's a parody, look pass that. Again, it's not about using common sense. It's about the fact that you are not getting that feedback. I am using this extreme example to showcase that it is left to your common sense even though it is crucial for iterating your business.

In this case it's clear: you need to iterate your customer segment to your value proposition, but the BMC is just not telling you that.

If you would go to market with this design, you would most likely sink. As my professor told me back in the day, it is easy to spot a design that won't float if you can use pure common sense, but what happens when that gap is not so wide and not as obvious...?

That's when you find yourself with a venture that makes sense, could float but will never actually win the motorboat race. See, to win the motorboat race you will probably have to change 100 times. For these 100 changes to be a meaningful improvements and not stabs in the dark, you need productive feedback.

I know what the next argument is: Lean. "We will try this, get feedback from the market, learn and change." I get that, but how about getting feedback before you test? i.e. how about going to market with something you have already iterated to find a good fit that you then validate and prove in the market? 

There are other models out there that go past the BMC, and that focus especially on the relationship between these quadrants and others too. If you are interested in exploring ways that go past the BMC and can help you iterate your business fast to win the race, then please do contact me!

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It sounds great, looks great and agency clients love it! The infamous Design Sprint! 

I must say, I fell for that trap in the past, so I don't really blame anyone who is still running them for themselves or their clients. But here is some food for thought.

Have you ever wondered what the Design Sprint is really about?  

Well it's not about design; not at all. 

In the Design Sprint methodology, there are no real design principles... Yes, I said that. Let me repeat it... In the Design Sprint methodology, there are no practical design principles. 

If you boil it down, way down, the Design Sprint is a great moderation tool. Yes, it's great, but it's a moderation tool. It is a way to help key stakeholders agree, or agree to disagree, on a solution. 

The process is driven by the decision maker's understanding of the market and their subjective view of the solution. 

In my humble view, where the Design Sprint comes short is that it does not provide an objective way to assess ideas. Ideas are as good as the decision-maker thinks they are, e.g. 

"I like that, I'm going to give it two sticky dots!"

In fact, to prove what I am saying, I will tell you a little Design Sprint story.

I was working on a product that helped kids to learn to play an instrument. It was Friday (i.e. Day 5 of the Design Sprint), and I realised that we were testing a "purple starfish" that had been promoted to the prototype as a way of helping kids to visualise their progress in the learning process. It was a terrific failure; every time we tested it, people were disconcerted.

Then the penny dropped. 

I asked myself, "How in the world did we get here? Why are we testing a purple starfish?"

The answer was simple; we had no objective criteria with which to assess ideas i.e. we had no way to assess to what extent any of these ideas would help our users in their goal of learning to play an instrument.

Someone along the way "liked" the starfish. It was "friendly," as someone put it. We had someone fantasise about the way kids would become friends with the starfish, and so we went down the rabbit hole... 

When it comes to solution design, Design Sprint methodology has no real framework for designing products that help users to achieve their desired outcome and solve their struggle.

The advantage, however, is that you "make decisions fast." This works for people/companies taking a lean approach in which you want to test and iterate fast. To be honest, we only lost a week on that purple starfish.

But what happens if, after the starfish, you design a yellow hippopotamus, then a blue octopus and then you rethink the starfish and end up where you started? 

Well you have made lots of decisions FAST, you have proven yourself wrong, and you come back to looking at that whiteboard and the sticky-notes.

Overall, what you are doing is throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. Well, have you ever considered looking more closely at the wall before you choose what to toss? 

Imagine if you did. Imagine if you knew what the wall was made of. Imagine if you knew what types of things would stick to the surface (i.e. what specific problems you needed to solve, what benchmarks your solution needed to beat, and how to evaluate each idea objectively) so that when you are choosing what to throw at the wall, you can make an informed decision.

Sounds great right? It does to me, and that is why I had to look for that something more.

If you want to learn how to figure out what the wall is made of and how to make your solution stick, then you need to use design principles supported by rigorous market insight.

If you are interested in going beyond Design Sprints, then reach out. We'd love to share what we've learned about what works.

​The online program for early-stage/pre-seed founders
We help startup founders turn their idea into a brilliant business and get the investment they need. 
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Already out in the wild and need help with retention?
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Or drop us a line: passion@whosfabio.com