all right in this video we're gonna talk
about design thinking what it is and
really why it's important to us as
entrepreneurs so we're going to start by
just explaining kind of the basics
surrounding design thinking it is a
process that we use to try to solve
problems and if you are an entrepreneur
or aspiring to be an entrepreneur you
realize that this is a very very
fundamental question that before we can
get into commercialization and value
creation we really need to start with an
understanding of a problem that we can
potentially develop a solution for so
this is where Design Thinking can help
us with a framework to understanding our
customers into gathering information and
to ultimately creating products that
people enjoy so the starting point for
Design Thinking is the pillars now
Design Thinking is based upon three
fundamental pillars the first of which
is empathy and empathy of course is
understanding in our case our customers
which is very very crucial and so you
see as we go through the design thinking
process empathy is something that plays
a very very critical role the next
critical piece Design Thinking is what
we call ideation now ideation sounds
like a really creative and interesting
term but really all it is is to embody
this part of this process of coming up
with ideas coming up with ways that we
can potentially solve people's problems
notice though that we start first with
empathy because it's really difficult
for us to solve a problem for someone
who we haven't walked in their shoes and
so this piece is very very important
after ideation the next pillar is
experimentation an experimentation is a
very critical piece to entrepreneurship
there's been a lot through
entrepreneurship to kind of more of this
testing lean methodology that was
pioneered by Eric Ries who wrote Lean
Startup several years ago and it is very
much permeated through not only Silicon
Valley but other pockets as well and has
kind of created this mindset that
entrepreneurs are really like science
in a lab but instead of working in a
official laboratory with beakers and a
bunch of different chemicals our
laboratory is the real world and the
better that we can run tests and gather
information and refine our ideas more
times that we can do that the better off
that we are in terms of releasing a
product that people are going to enjoy
versus making a lot of assumptions
releasing something into the market and
trying to you know hopefully kind of
taking the wait-and-see approach to
hopefully that feedback will be
favorable to us so this is the basic
framework for design thinking right
injecting empathy into the things that
we do gain gauging in this process of
ideation coming up with ideas and then
of course experimentation right because
nobody comes up with an idea that is
going to be commercially viable day one
right a lot of times we start with an
idea and as we communicate with
customers that idea changes right our
understanding of our customers change
the problem or at least our
understanding of it changes and that of
course changes the features and the
benefits that we seek to provide which
is really important so now we're going
to go into kind of this design thinking
process it very much is dependent upon
these pillars but there's a couple of
extra steps that we're going to talk
through just to give you some clarity
over what are the things that we should
be thinking about as we get to a place
to where we're interacting with
customers and trying to get feedback so
the first thing shouldn't come as a
surprise the first section is what we
call empathize this is the first step to
the design thinking process and this
takes many many forms one of the things
that we talk about a lot is what we call
customer discovery so if you haven't
read or heard a whole lot of customer
discovery I encourage you to do a little
bit of research on the topic essentially
customer discovery is about getting out
of the building and talking with
customers about our ideas and about
their problems not necessarily trying to
pitch our ideas to get them to purchase
something but just really trying to
understand our customers and their
current positions and their frustrations
and problems and different things so
that we can develop
better solutions for them and solutions
that ultimately will resonate with them
so the empathy part is really really
important another tool that we use along
with the customer discovery and
gathering information is what we call a
customer empathy map and that is a very
simple tool you can actually find it
online and it's meant as a visual aid to
help map out or sketch your
understanding of your customer in some
very specific areas and so it's it's
meant to be sort of this kind of ongoing
kind of piece of work as you interact
with customers and learn more you're
updating your map which essentially is a
visual visual representation of your
customers and so you have this clear
image of who you're actually building a
product or service for which helps you
develop the features in a different way
versus if you're focusing on a general
age range like a 25 to 44 year old which
is very broad and it's very difficult to
design a product for such a broad user
base at least at the beginning now once
we've engaged in this process of empathy
through engaging in customer discovery
and putting together our customer
empathy map and customer profiles then
we're going to move on to the next stage
which is what we call define and in the
define stage this is where we actually
get to the point where we're actually
identifying what are the problems a lot
of times when we come into trying to
start a business we have an an idea or
at least a belief about what the
problems are but once we start with kind
of this customer empathy piece and
interacting with customers we realize
that the problems are vastly different
than what we thought and so we have to
make changes and so this helps us to
kind of solidify what are the problems
what are we going to try to solve them
what are we going to build the next
stage which is stage 3 is ID 8
under the id8 stage we're actually going
to try to develop solutions to the
problems that we identified before and
so this is where we finally get to a
place to what we're thinking of an
actual solution now this intuitively
probably makes sense but if you think
about the way that people normally try
to solve problems right we don't
necessarily engage in empathy we don't
necessarily define problems a lot of
times when we're thinking of a business
to start we start in this stage right
here right we start with solutions and
then we work backwards and then we try
to go and see if there's a problem that
we can solve with them and so with the
design thinking process we're actually
reversing the order we're not coming in
with an existing solution and trying to
find a market for that solution we're
looking at the market and we're trying
to see what are the problems the
frustrations and the hang-ups that the
people in the market have and how can I
develop a solution that is tailor-made
to that group so it's a little bit of a
different process than what we commonly
see and what people usually engage in is
that we are looking for problems and
then we are trying to develop solutions
for those now the next stage this
process is very much in line with the
pillars and design thinking is we're
going to develop a prototype now when
many people see the word prototype they
assume that I'm referring to some kind
of physical representation of a product
and that is certainly an option but by
prototype I'm generally referring to the
term a minimum Minimum Viable Product
and so a Minimum Viable Product is a
term that was coined by Eric Ries in
lean startup and it's essentially the
lowest form of the product that people
will accept that allows you to get
feedback on some of your key assumptions
so instead of operating if you want to
start a restaurant instead of launching
a restaurant maybe your MVP is cooking
up some food and doing sampling and
having a questionnaire and getting
feedback so that's a way for you to
determine if people actually like your
food without the investment of buying a
or renting a place and putting in a
commercial kitchen and going through all
the different health inspection
regulations that you have to do you want
to kind of have a staggered approach
right and ultimately ESCO
your commitment as it makes sense not go
you know in essence all in and then
magnify your risk instead you want
little checkpoints little mile markers
and when you pass one that gives you
permission to go on to the next one and
scale up your commitment just a little
bit more in terms of time and money and
so we're doing this in a very practical
and conservative way so that we can see
what the market is pulling versus trying
to push products into the market and
trying to convince consumers to buy them
which may work but we will need a lot of
advertising and marketing money to be
able to push products in to market and
for the lion's share of entrepreneurs
this simply isn't a viable option for
obvious reasons so prototyping is a very
key important part of this design
thinking process now the last part to
the whole puzzle is testing and in
testing what we're doing is we're using
our prototypes or Minimum Viable
products that we develop to actually get
feedback right so we're making a list of
all of the assumptions we have and we're
trying to get feedback from the market
to see if our assumptions are true and
if we need to make any kind of changes
and this is a very important part to
this process because what we don't want
is to release a product into the market
and that be the first time that
customers are interacting with that
right that might go well but it can also
go very poorly and we might have
invested a lot of money and time into
that process so by going through this
design thinking process we can very much
ramp up the feedback cycle that we get
by going from empathy to defining to
ideation to prototyping and then lastly
to testing and then we can engage in
this iterative process where we're
continuing through the cycle multiple
times and as a result refining our
products and making them better and
better and better
but that's a little about the design
thinking process so again it is very
much kind of a process that we want to
as we're thinking about launching
products we want to mentally think about
how to how do we display empathy and how
do we gather information
how do we define the problems and how do
we ID eight and how do we prototype and
how do we test and by doing this process
we can essentially get to a point to
where we are gathering and having a
better understanding of our customer but
also producing products that ultimately
lead to the fulfillment of some kind of
legitimate customer problem