The document outlines key principles for starting new ventures in electrical and computer engineering, focusing on customer discovery and the development of mental models. It emphasizes the importance of understanding user needs through personas and interviews to guide product design and business strategy. Additionally, it discusses techniques for validating ideas and matching them to customer desires and behaviors.

1. Duke ECE 490L: How to Start New Ventures in
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Poornima Vijayashanker
poornima@femgineer.com
Jeff Glass
jeff.glass@duke.edu
Akshay Raut
ar118@duke.edu
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2. Review
Duke ECE 490L
• More on positioning!
• Digging into the Competitor
• Horizontal vs. Vertical Market
• Substitutes
• Secondary Markets
• Point Tool vs. Integrated Solutions
• Customer Discovery
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3. Announcements
• Quiz 1 results coming soon!
• Questions on Lab 2?
Duke ECE 490L
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4. Idea Summary
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5. Agenda
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• Customer Discovery
• Mental Models
• Customer Interviews
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Still no building...
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Myth of the omniscient founder.
Supplemental Reading: The Steve Jobs Way
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Customer Discovery Validation Customer Creation
Business/Company
Formation
Early Adopter
Pricing
Product
Distribution
Mainstream Adopters
Money for Marketing
Market Research
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Customer Discovery Validation Customer Creation
Business/Company
Formation
Early Adopter
Pricing
Product
Distribution
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10. Test across various user segments.
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Mental Model of an early adopter.
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Mental models give you a deep
understanding of people’s motivations
and thought-processes, along with the
emotional and philosophical landscape
in which they are operating.
Supplemental Reading: Mental Models
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Mental Model per segment.
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Understand the differences to bring
clarity to design and product
implementation.
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15. Benefits of Mental Models
Duke ECE 490L
• Confidence in your design: guide the design
of the solution
• Clarity in direction: make good user and
business decisions
• Continuity of strategy: ensure longevity of
vision and opportunity
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How do you know the design is right?
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Research.
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18. Case Study: Frank Gehry Disney Hall
Duke ECE 490L
• Disney Hall: think about how
people listen
• Worked closely with acoustician
to produce BIG and small sounds
• Conductor thinks about on stage
• Musician’s relationship to the
room
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Whole experience.
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Pay attention to the entire spectrum
of interactions customer will have,
not just a single service or tool.
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MM captures cognitive intent and
emotion, social environment, and
cultural traits of a concept.
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What does that mean?
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Science + Intuition = communicate product info
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25. Purpose of Mental Models
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• Validate ideas and match them to needs of customers
• Mental models capture
• Cognitive intent
• Emotions
• Social and culture traits of a concept
• Experience Strategy = Business Strategy + UX Strategy
• Jesse James Garrett
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How do we create a mental model?
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1. Learn verbs of a customer.
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e.g. Yoga studio owner
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Teach yoga classes.
Take attendance.
Schedule instructors.
Ask students for payments.
Owns or manages studio.
Performs back office tasks or business
partner does.
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e.g. Yoga instructor
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Teach yoga classes 1-1.
Teach yoga classes at a studio.
Teach yoga classes in corporations.
May teach full-time or part-time.
Take attendance.
Ask students for payments.
Travel to teach.
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2. Create personas.
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Personas are user profiles that
help design and other teams such
as sales and marketing get more
useful products into the hands of
customers.
Supplemental Reading: Getting Your Startup Team to Understand Your
Customer, About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design
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34. Personas Benefit Other Teams
Duke ECE 490L
• Marketing
• Develop positions based on personas
• Sales
• Communicate how product will meet needs of customers
• Engineering
• Understand importance of building not for themselves but
for the customer by understanding customer’s needs
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35. Personas Benefit Other Teams
Duke ECE 490L
• Focus on end goals & life goals
• what a person wishes to accomplish
• why a person wishes to accomplish something
• Create Segments
• task based: people who do similar things but don’t necessarily buy the same
product
• e.g. teens & seniors are both “movie-goers”
• Avoid traditional market segment traps
• list distinguishing behavior
• group behavior
• name groups
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36. Avoid Traditional Marketing Segment Traps
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• List distinguishing behaviors: Sketch out all
the ways many types of individuals might
behave
• Group the behaviors: study these behaviors
and put them into groups
• Name the groups: assign provisional labels
to the groups
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Multiple user segments, each has a
different need.
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Determining needs will help with design.
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To determine needs we need to do
user research.
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User Research Types.
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Data Technique Uses
Preferences
Opinions, likes, dislikes
Survey
Focus Group
Mood Boards
Preference Interview
Customer Feedback
Visual Design
Branding
Market Analysis
Advertising Campaigns
Evaluative
What is understood or accomplished
with a tool.
Usability Test
Log Analysis
Search Analysis
Customer Feedback
Interaction Functionality
Screen Layout
Nomenclature
Information Architecture
Generative
Mental environment in which things
get done
Non-Directed Interview
Mental Model
Diary
Ethnography
Contextual Inquiry
Navigation & Flow
Interaction Design
Alignment & Gap Analysis
Contextual Marketing
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Set goals relating back to customer discovery.
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Personas come out of interviewing
user segments.
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Collect feedback and categorize customers.
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Yoga Studio Owner/Manager
Yoga Instructor
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Some needs will be the same. While
others have a stark contrast.
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Results from interview will point out
the general cases.
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48. Interview Checklist
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• How many of each audience segment to select
• Demographics to select, if applicable
• A qualification questionnaire for recruiters to use
• Questions to make certain that the candidate is able to
carry on a long enough conversation
• A schedule with available interview appointments
• A list of qualifying candidates
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49. 6 Rules for Mental Models Interviews
Duke ECE 490L
1. Behaviors and philosophies, not product preferences
2. Open questions only
3. No words of your own
4. Follow the conversation
5. Not about tools
6. Immediate experience
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50. Open-Ended Questions
Duke ECE 490L
• Elicit more info
• compared to yes/no
• Don’t bias answers
• doesn’t distract their thinking
• Let’s people direct answers to what they
think is important
• “Tell me more...”
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51. Examples of Open-Ended Questions
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• How did you do that?
• How did you actually get that info?
• So is that’s one of the things you’re doing right now?
(Encouraging him to tell me more.)
• How do you keep up to date on the latest?
• Can you mention a couple of examples?
• Can you tell me…what are your next steps?
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Find out as much as possible about
the customer.
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53. Digging Deeper into the Personas
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• Where do they hang out?
• What do they read?
• Who influences them? Or recommends products?
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Interview results.
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3. Comb for tasks.
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Type of Task Definition
Task
a phrase setting an action or step to accomplish
something.
Implied Task
a not-so-clear phrase implying an action “Every
class students come in and we need to check
them in."
Third-Party Task
a phrase that mentions a task someone else does
“My front desk person checks students in.”
Philosophy
a phrase stating a belief of why tasks are done a
certain way “Taking attendance should be fast and
easy.”
Feeling
a phrase describing a person’s feelings “When all
students are checked in I know classes run
smoothly.”
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Interest Level Definition
Preference
a phrase stating a person’s likes or dislikes “I
don’t like asking students for money right
when they check-in.”
Desire
a phrase stating what the person wants “I wish
students would just pre-pay for classes.”
Expectation
a belief that something will happen “I think
students will know how to pre-pay for
classes.”
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Quote Task Type of Task
“I need to stay organized to keep
my business on-track.”
Would feel business is going well
if they were more organized.
Desire
“I take attendance before each
class.”
Takes attendance. Task
“Tracking attendance and letting
students see it keeps them
honest about paying on time.”
Believes taking attendance
keeps students honest.
Feeling
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What’s the point?
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Customer Discovery Validation Customer Creation
Business/Company
Formation
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Tasks
What customers do that
you might want to design a
solution for.
Desire, Feelings,
Preference, Expectations
Characterizes level of need.
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4. Match personas to tasks.
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Yoga Instructor Teaches yoga.
Takes attendance.
Asks for payment.
Yoga Studio
Owner Teaches at one studio.
Travels to teach yoga.
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5. Look for patterns.
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Track
Attendance
Inform Students
about Membership
Status
Take Payments
Task: Takes attendance before classes.
Task: Informs students they are expired.
Task: Teaches students yoga.
Desire: Get paid on time to stay in business.
Desire: Students would pre-pay.
Preference: Doesn’t like asking students
to pay right when they check-in.
Task: Takes payments from students.
Desire: Wants to teach more.
Preference: Likes interacting with students.
Preference: Doesn’t enjoy doing
mundane business tasks.
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6. Tasks become “stories”.
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Persona + what is it they are doing = accomplish a goal.
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As a yoga studio owner, I’d
like to take attendance as
students check-in to class.
Example:
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As a yoga instructor, I’d like
to keep track of the
students I teach privately.
Example:
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As a yoga business person,
I’d like to keep track of the
my students memberships.
Example:
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As a yoga business person,
I’d like to get paid on time
so that I can stay in
business.
Example:
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7. Stories feed into features.
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Features fit into product implementation.
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More details in next lecture!
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75. Review
Duke ECE 490L
• More on positioning!
• Digging into the Competitor
• Horizontal vs. Vertical Market
• Substitutes
• Secondary Markets
• Point Tool vs. Integrated Solutions
75