Creating The Right Product For The Right Customer
Welcome back to an all-new Head’s Up. This week, we covered a webinar on design thinking organised by 1337 Ventures , a venture capital firm in Malaysia that is focused on startups to bring you top tips and quirks on creating the right product and service for your customers.
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News & Announcements
ScaleUp Malaysia Launches Cohort 3
ScaleUp Malaysia has launched Cohort 3 of their programme targeting high growth scaleups. In launching Cohort 3 ScaleUp Malaysia announced that they have entered into partnerships with two venture capital firms, Singapore-based Quest Ventures and US based Indelible Ventures to be part of their effort to further scale chosen scaleups at the launch today.
Collectively these firms bring access to partners, investors and other networks in Southeast Asia and the United States of America, accelerating targeted growth in new times.
For more information on ScaleUp Malaysia and to put in your applications for Cohort 3, visit: https://www.scaleup.my/cohort-3
Alpha startups Preaccelerator Programme
FWD Start-up Studio and 1337 Ventures are coming together to launch Cohort 2 of Alpha Startups Pre-Accelerator programme to help aspiring entrepreneurs and start-ups ideate, validate and fine-tune their business and go-to-market plans for Fintech, Insurtech & Takatech startup idea.
This is a 12 week long programme in October that will enable participants to discover new opportunities to enhance the ecosystem and value chain. The registration is open now until 1st October 2021.
Registration closes on the 1st of October. Sign up now at bit.ly/fwdcohort2
By Poojalexmi
A startup is defined as a “young company founded by one or more entrepreneurs to develop a unique product or service and bring it to market”.
According to the analysis of 111 startup post mortems done by CB Insights, 38% of startups fail because of not fulfilling the market needs and 8% had a poor product proving that it is important to start off on the right foot with a product that meets the demands of the market. So, how do you create a product that people want?
Design Thinking Process
To dig a little deeper, Head’s Up attended a webinar on design thinking organised by 1337 Ventures , a venture capital firm in Malaysia that is focused on startups.
Below are the 5 steps in the process of design thinking that we would like to share with you to create a product or service that will ensure the success of your startup.
Empathy
The first stage of this process is when we set aside personal assumptions and perceptions of a situation. Instead, we learn about the actual reality users experience and understand their wants, needs and frustrations. We start by discovering the persona of the customer which includes their demography, behaviour, needs and goals.
To aid with this discovery, you should interview people who you would like to market your product or service to. Like everything, an interview requires certain skills such as listening skills and the ability to ask good questions. Harnessing your listening skills is essential to be able to collect information from what the user says and does not say.
In fact, you should be aware of topics the customer is avoiding because it could indicate underlying stress and frustrations. This could then be incorporated in the product as a way to relieve the customer of those burdens. Besides that, being able to ask the right questions will have you understand the perceptions, wants and needs of the customer.
2. Define
In this stage, you will be able to define the problems that you are trying to solve and create problem statements. This is done by collecting data that serves as clues to the problems that are being faced. Other than data that is found, you can also make educated hunches that are merely interpretations based on facts and customer persona. These hunches would usually start with “I think” or “I feel”.
Once these clues and hunches have been collected and analysed, they will then be grouped under similar themes. From these themes, point of views will be created to show meaningful problem statements. A good point of view is specific and will include the type of user, the needs of the user and the insights and observations that are collected from the clues and hunches.
After that, these point of views will then be rephrased into question statements that begins with “How might we..”. The questions are phrased as such to generate a thinking that would lean towards a descriptive, optimistic and collaborative mindset that will inspire the entrepreneur to come up with good ideas.
3. Ideate
Ideate is the exciting stage of the process and this is the part where designers are able to create ideas from the problem statements. Using the “How might we..” statements, designers are able to generate solutions on how to work on these statements. As a leader, it is important to allow the team to have the space to voice out their ideas and not feel intimidated.
Although collecting many ideas could feel overwhelming, this process will also include a voting system. This voting system will then be able to differentiate and group ideas into four different groups. These groups are divided based on ideas that you should have, you must have, you could have and you will not have. After having a clear division of ideas, you can then move on to create a prototype.
4. Prototype
This stage calls for designer to build a model that they have visualised and prove that it is able to work. These prototypes can be drawn out if it is a product or mapped out if it is a process. Besides that, designers will be able to investigate the problems and solution that have arised during the first three stages and incorporate it into the product. After creating a prototype, it can then be tested out within the team and be refined further.
5. Test it
Finally, with a functioning prototype, users will then be included to test the prototype. Each user should be asked for feedbacks on what does work and the improvements that can be made. On top of that, users should be able to communicate questions and ideas that they might have. Depending on the feedback from the users, designers are able to improve and refine their products or services.
In conclusion, design thinking a problem based approach that encourages collaboration between the users and designers. This will then allow problems to be faced and valuable ideas to be born. It is a tool that serves to improve your own process and empower innovation.
Whether it’s a feedback or if you would like to share your story with us, feel free to reach out to us via headsupnewsletter@gmail.com