DESIGN THINKING

FOR STARTUPS
Andreas Birnik
Antler Global Venture Partner
Introduction

This deck introduces the key concepts of Design Thinking drawing heavily on material from
the d.school at Stanford University (The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design).

EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

Design Thinking provides a human-centric approach to address problems worth solving.

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 Traits Of Great Design Thinkers

INTEGRATIVE
EMPATHY THINKING OPTIMISM EXPERIMENTALISM COLLABORATION

Ability to imagine the world Ability to see all of the salient No matter how challenging Significant innovations don’t The increasing complexity of
from multiple perspectives – – and sometimes the constraints of a given come from incremental products, services, and
those of colleagues, clients, contradictory – aspects of a problem, at least one tweaks. Design thinkers pose experiences has replaced the
end users, and customers confounding problem and potential solution is better questions and explore myth of the lone creative
(current and prospective). By create novel solutions that go than the existing alternatives. constraints in creative ways genius with the reality of the
taking a “people first” beyond and dramatically that proceed in entirely new enthusiastic interdisciplinary
approach, design thinkers improve on existing directions. collaborator. The best design
can imagine solutions that alternatives. thinkers don’t simply work
are inherently desirable and alongside other disciplines;
meet explicit or latent needs. many of them have
Great design thinkers significant experience in
observe the world in minute more than one.
detail. They notice things that
others do not and use their
insights to inspire innovation.

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Source: https://new-ideo-com.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/files/pdfs/IDEO_HBR_DT_08.pdf
 Integrative thinking

Solutions that Solutions with sustainable

people want HUMAN ECONOMIC business models
Design Thinking sits DESIRABILITY VIABILITY

at the intersection
of human
desirability, DESIGN
technical feasibility THINKING

and economic
viability

Solutions that can

realistically be built TECHNICAL
FEASIBILITY

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Source: https://designthinking.ideo.com
 Adopting design thinking mitigates startup
failure
Top 20 reasons startups fail
Based on analysis of 101 startup post-mortems
The Design Thinking approach directly
seeks to address several of the key reasons
why startups fail.

The #1 reason is “no market need” which

the deep, empathy driven interviews used
in Design Thinking focus on establishing.

Also note Y-Combinator’s tagline: “Make

something people want”

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Source: https://www.cbinsights.com/research/startup-failure-reasons-top/
 Relationship between design thinking, lean startup method
and agile

DESIGN THINKING LEAN STARTUP MODEL AGILE

“Design thinking is a human-centered “Lean startup is a methodology for Agile is a way of working, based on an
approach to innovation that draws from developing businesses and products, iterative development, incremental
the designer’s toolkit to integrate the which aims to shorten product delivery and ongoing reassessment of a
needs of people, the possibilities of development cycles and rapidly discover product.
technology, and the requirements for if a proposed business model is viable;
business success”, Tim Brown, CEO of this is achieved by adopting a
IDEO combination of business-hypothesis-
driven experimentation, iterative product
releases, and validated learning.” —
 Wikipedia

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 Making sense of design thinking, lean startup,
agile
Ideate Sprint Planning

Learn
Abstract

Product Sprint
Backlog Execution
Define
Try Experiments

Pivot/Persevere?
Sprint Shippable
Empathize Build Review Increment
Concrete

Iterate
Measure

Customer Problem Customer Solution

DESIGN THINKING LEAN STARTUP AGILE

1 GENERATE 2 DEVELOP 3 TRANSFER

For more information on this research, see “Enterprise Architects Combine Design Thinking, Lean Startup and Agile to Drive Digital Innovation.”
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Source: Garter https://www.gartner.com/binaries/content/assets/events/keywords/enterprise-architecture/epaeu17/enterprise_architecture_and__tech-innovation.pdf
 Design thinking phases

EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

UNDERSTAND EXPLORE MATERIALIZE

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Source: https://medium.com/@bhmiller0712/what-is-design-thinking-and-what-are-the-5-stages-associated-with-it-d628152cf220
 Alternation of divergent and convergent
processes

Understand Create Deliver

Understanding ends in INSIGHT Creation ends in IDEAS Delivery ends in REALITY

EMPATHY DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST

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Source: https://medium.com/@bhmiller0712/what-is-design-thinking-and-what-are-the-5-stages-associated-with-it-d628152cf220
 Start with the assumption
that the best way to do
something is not the way it’s
being done right now.
Aaron Levie, Box
EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

Empathize

• During the “Empathize Phase”, you seek to acquire a deep understanding of the
problem you are looking to solve
• Focus on solving issues that really matter. These are sometimes called “painkillers”
compared to “vitamins”
• “Painkillers”
— Solutions to burning issues that frustrate users and that they are willing to
pay to see resolved (payment can mean cash, parting with personal
information or accepting advertising)
• “Vitamins”
— Nice to have solutions, often of an incremental nature, that users may or
may not be willing to pay for
• Adopt an ethnographer’s mindset by walking in the customer’s shoes, trying to set
aside your own views / assumptions
• Focus on customer painpoints - “painstorming” at every step of the customer
journey

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EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

Empathize: Interviewing

• Conduct a large number of empathy driven interviews with different stakeholders

(rule of thumb: 50-100 interviews)
• Ideally one person doing the interviews with another person capturing insights
• Seek to capture:
— What are people doing?
— How are they doing it?
— Why are they doing it?
— How does it make them feel (e.g. angry, happy, frustrated, satisfied, stressed,
content, bored, wasteful, …)?
• Don’t be afraid of silence (let people think)
• Look for inconsistencies (what people say versus what they do)
• Observe non-verbal cues (body language)

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EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

Example of customer journey mapping (1)

Consider building customer journey maps to understand processes in detail and capture customer painpoints

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Source: https://medium.com/@bhmiller0712/what-is-design-thinking-and-what-are-the-5-stages-associated-with-it-d628152cf220
EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

Example of customer journey mapping (2)

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Source: https://www.copper.com/blog/customer-journey-mapping
EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

Define

• During the “Definition Phase”, you put together all the information from the
interviews to draw design insights
• Make sure that you define the problem / opportunity from the perspective of
potential customers
• Stay clear of designing actual solutions during this phase. Instead articulate design
principles that can guide multiple different solutions.
• Example:
— From “Users are frustrated by the lack of ability to customize a product or
service.”
— To “Integrate product customization as an optional step in the purchase
process.”
• Try to avoid long laundry lists – focus on highlighting one or a few customer
painpoints and their associated design principles
• If no novel / breakthrough opportunities become obvious, you may be at risk of
later on designing a ”me too” solution

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FALL in LOVE with the
PROBLEM
not with the solution.
Uri Levine, Co-founder of Waze
EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

Ideate

• During the “Ideation Phase”, you are generating multiple alternatives to solve the
problem / meet the need / overcome the painpoint
• Similar to during brainstorming, ideation is not the time for critical evaluation or
narrow focus
• Don’t become locked into a single solution: “Fall in love with the problem, not with
your solution”
• Create “Fluency” (volume of ideas) and “Flexibility” (variety of ideas)
• At the end of the ideation process, rank the ideas as decide which ones to
prototype

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Building a good customer experience
does not happen by accident.
It happens by DESIGN.

Clare Muscutt,
Women in CX &
Former Sainsbury Head of CX

Jason Goldberg, Fab.com

 SIMPLE can be harder than
COMPLEX. You have to work
hard to get your thinking
clean to make it simple.
Steve Jobs
 A GOOD DESIGNER
finds an elegant way to put
everything you need on a
page. A GREAT DESIGNER
convinces you half that s**t
is unnecessary.
Mike Monteiro, Art Designer and Director
You have to make every
single detail PERFECT.
And you have to limit
the number of details.
Jack Dorsey, Twitter
EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

Prototype

• During the “Prototyping Phase”, you are putting your ideas into the real world in
order to learn. Design thinking is “learning by making” – i.e. “building in order to
think” rather than “thinking what to build”
• The faster the ideas enter the real world as prototypes, the faster we are able to
learn. Hence, initially focus on “low-fidelity mockups” to quickly explore multiple
possibilities at low cost
• Good prototypes will fuel discussion and lead to deeper empathy with customers’
needs
• Consider prototyping multiple versions of a key feature guided by your design
principles
(i.e. not just complete prototypes)
• You can also reverse the game by asking users to prototype – could be as simple as
pen and paper to draw wireframes
• With increased confidence from testing, you can move towards “high-fidelity
mockups” – near finished product look and feel

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EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

Prototype: low-fidelity versus high-fidelity prototyping (1)

• What is a prototype? – A visual / real world expression of designer’s intent

• Low-Fidelity Prototype
— Emphasizing functionality over-look and feel, omits lots of details
• High-Fidelity Prototype
— Closer to finished product in look and feel
• Fidelity dimensions
— Breadth of functionality: % of functionality covered
— Depth of functionality: degree of functionality (high-level or end-to-end)
— Look: visual design
— Feel: interactivity / navigation / information input

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EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

Prototype: low-fidelity versus high-fidelity prototyping (2)

Low-Fidelity Prototype VS High-Fidelity Prototype

Simple wireframes capturing key

Full visual design with clickable interaction
functionality

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Source: https://medium.com/@tristaljing/what-you-are-still-doing-high-fidelity-prototype-slowly-71606f7185b3
EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

Prototype: sample software tools

InVision
Balsamiq
(low fidelity
(low
& high
fidelity)
fidelity)

AdobeXD MockPlus
(low fidelity (low fidelity
& high & high
fidelity) fidelity)

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Source: https://www.invisionapp.com/; https://balsamiq.com; https://www.adobe.com/products/xd/wireframing-tool.html; https://www.mockplus.com
Perfection is achieved, NOT
WHEN THERE IS NOTHING
MORE TO ADD, but when
there is NOTHING LEFT TO
TAKE AWAY.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Author
User experience matters a lot.
More than most people realize.
the best-designed user
experiences get out of the way
and just help people get s**t
done. Less is more.
IF YOU HAVE TO EXPLAIN IT,
YOU’VE ALREADY FAILED.
Jason Goldberg, Fab.com
EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

Test

During the “Testing Phase”, you are gathering feedback from users and
deepening your empathy further (rule of thumb: testing with 50-100 people
across low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes)
• In “human-centered design” you test not only to learn about your solution but also
to continuously learn more about your users – things you may not have discovered
during the “Empathize phase”
• Remember to focus on “showing” rather than “telling” - listen to the user talking
through the prototype experience rather than you guiding the user through your
own storytelling
• Look for “uses” and “misuses” to figure out where your product isn’t intuitive
• Follow up with empathy seeking questions: “how did that make you feel?”, “why did
you do that?”, “what was confusing?”, “what was unclear?”, “what could be better?”

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 The great thing about the
internet is you can launch a
product, and within just a few
hours, people will tell you what
they think about it.

Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube

Jason Goldberg, Fab.com

 Don't solicit feedback just for
validation purposes.

You want to tell the people who can

help move your idea forward, but if
you're just looking to your friend, co-
worker, husband or wife for
validation, be careful.
It can stop a lot of multimillion-
dollar ideas in their tracks in the
beginning.

Sara Blakely, Founder of Spanx

Jason Goldberg, Fab.com
EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

Test: Sample techniques

FEATURE LADDERING “POWERS OF 10”

• Ask potential customers what • Using scale as a reframing exercise.

features matter.
• Test your assumptions by scaling
• Then ask them to ladder the them up and down.
features to identify the most
important ones. • E.g., for design of a shopping
process – online shopping for toilet
• Use laddering to figure out key paper (low value) versus a flat
features and priority in visual screen TV (medium value) versus a
design and the company house (high value).
development roadmap.
• Does what matters for customers
change with scale?

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EMPATHIZE DEFINE IDEATE PROTOTYPE TEST IMPLEMENT

Implement

• During the “Implementation Phase”, you are building the MVP based on the
confidence you have gained during the iterative prototyping and testing phases
• The MVP is usually close to the high-fidelity mock-up after iterative testing and
development
• The iterative cycle then continues with further feedback from customers, tracking
of live KPIs and the introduction of new features / product versions

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 Further resources (1)

Tim Brown, IDEO CEO, on Design Thinking

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Source: https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/design-thinking-bootleg; https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=112&v=UAinLaT42xY
 Further resources (2)

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Source: https://new-ideo-com.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/files/pdfs/IDEO_HBR_DT_08.pdf; https://experience.sap.com/skillup/introduction-to-design-thinking/