Talk given to students of E-MBA programme at Institute of Product Leadership - 22nd Aug 2015

1. Why the first 2 stages of design
thinking are important for a startup?
Anuradha Sridharan
22nd Aug 2015

2. Conversation with a colleague on “innovation”

3. What is innovation? “To each their own”

4. For me, innovation is all about
the magnitude of the problem it solves
Relieved a new mother from grocery
shopping woes
Gave options to a lady who has to travel
to a new city
Helped me to easily setup a customized
communication plan to increase user
engagement
Gave confidence to demo an upcoming
feature to business prospects

5. " you create wealth in proportion to how well you understand
the problem you're solving, and the problems you understand
best are your own."
- Paul Graham in the essay “18 mistakes that kill startups”

6. “A product manager must
understand the customer’s
situation better than the
customer does, and use
that knowledge to develop
a solution for the customer.”
- Steve Johnson

7. I strongly believe that design and
innovation are exactly the same thing.
Design is more than the aesthetics and
artifacts associated with products; it’s
a strategic function that focuses on
what people want and need and
dream of, then crafts experiences
across the full brand ecosystem that
are meaningful and relevant for
customers.
- Mauro Porcini, Chief Design Officer,
PepsiCo

8. The more time spent in understanding the problem statement of the consumer,
the better the chances to identify the scope of creating "wow" moments in the
overall product/service experience.
What would delight your customers?
What would take them by surprise?
What would make them go wow?
What would make their lives better?
Image Source: http://nigeriarealestatehub.com/the-time-it-takes-to-succeed-in-real-estate-business.html/

9. Stages of Design thinking
Focus of this talk

10. Design Thinking Framework (from Dr. Jeanne Liedtka’s course)

11. MINDTICKLE
Case Study 1 – Focus on Empathy

12. MindTickle Sales Readiness Platform
Sales readiness – how prepared your salesreps are towards responding to customers’ needs

13. - Roles and responsibilities
- How is their performance measured?
- What motivates them?
- What are their challenges?
Stakeholders
VP Sales
Sales
Director /
Manager
Sales
Enablement
Manager
SalesRep
Personas

14. Interviews with the most important stakeholder
VP Sales of fast growing tech startups
Principles followed:
Open-ended, unbiased questions – a conversation
“Listen”, don’t interrupt
Observe subtle expressions/cues
Sample list of Questions asked:
How is your sales team structured?
How do you onboard your new sales hires?
What is the process followed?
Who all are involved in onboarding?
When are they assigned sales quotas?
When do they start meeting their quotas?
How do you check if they are ready to hit the
ground?
How do you communicate any important updates
to them?
How do you measure their performance?
How do you identify the areas where you need to
coach them?

15. Empathy Map
Happy with the current process
It’s working well now
I expanded the team to 8 reps
I drive the process, it’s manual but it achieves the results
for me
After talking to you, I feel scared now. What happens if a
bus hits me or if I need to go on a long leave?
Say Do
Busy lady. Hard to get hold of her.
Gave a timeslot at 9 pm but was only able to join at 10 pm
Very responsive over emails
Likes to talk
Open and willing to share
I’m busy for the next one month but do send me more
details on your upcoming product
Wants to be treated as an important person, playing a
strategic role in a high growth startup
Think
Proud of her achievements in the organization so far.
Wants to be a pioneer/leader and a driver of change
Happy and proud with how things are going so far. But
there’s an element of concern when her team starts to
expand
Wants to remove the dependency on her, which will give
her bandwidth to move onto more important decisions in
the org
Feel

16. Activity - testing the pitching skills of a sales rep and giving feedback
Before During After
Identify focus areas that a
salesrep need to be strong
at (value proposition,
product benefits,
competition, common
objections, pricing etc)
Decide on an order in
which these areas need to
be tested
Schedule time with a
salesrep and his peers to
have a pitching demo.
Block this time from other
activities
Identify the
parameters/criteria on
which salesrep need to be
evaluated. Document in
google drive.
Ask the salesrep to do the
pitching demo
Take down
notes/observations on
areas they are good at and
areas to be improved
Give your feedback to
salesrep. Assign a score.
Peer also shares his
feedback and the score.
Come up with an action
plan and a timeline on
action items.
Ensure all the notes are
updated in google drive
Followup with salesrep to
check if there is
improvement in the areas
identified
Schedule a followup
session
Share relevant
material/docs to help the
salesrep improve his skill
Journey Map

17. Defining the problem statement / Framing the problem
How can we make the skills assessment and coaching workflow smooth and hassle
free?
How can we ensure that pitch assessment is seen as a productive coaching tool and
not as performance management system?
How can we improve the coaching experience of a Sales Head?
What can we do before/during/after skills assessment to ensure salesrep are sales-
ready?
How can we minimize the dependency on VP Sales / senior salesrep?

18. Missions – Testing various skills of your salesreps
(Pitching, Communication, Negotiation, Objection handling)

19. HEALTHIFYME
Case Study 2 – Problem Definition

20. A comprehensive weight-loss solution
Helps you to achieve fitness and weight
loss goals
Calorie Tracker for Indian foods
Track your meals and exercise
Get analysis and actionable insights on
your calorie intake
Get personalized advice from coaches

21. Premium
Product
Photo
tracking
More data
Dietitian
Messaging
HealthifyMe Premium Product (V1.0) – May 2013

22. 1.
• Why are our highly engaged free users
not purchasing our premium plans?
2.
• Why are our premium users not
renewing their plans?
Issues to address

23. “I’m happy with “free” product, I don’t see much value in upgrading to
premium”
“I usually repeat my foods which I can easily track using your Quick-Track. Why
upload a photo and wait for you to track it for me?”
“Reaching out to a dietitian sounds interesting. But I’m a little skeptical about
this whole online model”
Interviews with highly engaged free users

24. “I’m traveling and I forget to log my meals. Sometimes, it gets so boring”
“What should I do with the micro-nutrients data? Your app says that my diet is
high on sodium. What should I do?”
“My dietitian is not customizing any recommendations for me”
“I’m not seeing much progress with my weight loss goal”
Interviews with premium users who are not renewing their plan

25. Goal
How do we make the premium
product more valuable to our
users?

26. User + Need + Insight
Customers who
want to lose
weight
Get personalized
guidance from
dietitians and
trainers to help
them achieve
their fitness goals
in a fun manner
- Trust factor is
very low in an
app-only model
- Premium users
don’t like to log
regularly, even
though they have
paid for it and
inspite of
repeated
reminders from
the dietitian
Framing the problem

27. How can we provide personalized guidance?
Skype sessions /
Phone
consultations
Understand the
goal of the
customer more
clearly
Understand their
eating
preferences
Understand their
workout
preferences
Get more info on
their lifestyle
Hire more
nutritionists
Hire trainers who
specialize in cardio,
strength training,
yoga etc

28. How can we make the experience more fun?
Design a game
(points, badges)
Make it more
competitive
Come up with
Group challenges
Give some
interesting
insights on foods
consumed by
others
Give weekly
targets to break
the monotony
Offline meetups

29. HealthifyMe Premium Product – Sept/Oct 2013
Set of
experiments
Weekly
targets,
manual
rollout
Manual email
based
engagement
Basic
gamification
(points and
leaderboard)
Coaching
sessions with
manual
scheduling

30. HealthifyMe Premium Product – Aug 2015

31. Take-aways
1) Leverage your network to connect to people who match your target
persona definition. People are generally helpful, irrespective of their
position.
2) Prepare a list of questions (how, what, why etc) and ensure you don’t
direct them towards the problems you want to hear
3) People love to talk about their problems/issues/challenges
- If you care to listen with an open mind
- If you treat the discussion as a learning session and not a channel to
confirm your biases
4) Be ready to absorb and assimilate surprises that come your way
5) Problem identification and definition needn’t be 100% accurate but
should give you enough insights to create “test-able” hypotheses

32. For further exploration
Lean Customer Development by Cindy Alvarez
Badass: Making users awesome by Kathy Sierra
HBR Sept 2015 issue
https://www.coursera.org/course/designbiz - Design thinking for
business innovation course by Dr. Jeanne Liedtka
https://hbr.org/2015/04/a-process-for-empathetic-product-design
https://hackdesign.org/lessons/12

33. Thank you!
Want to continue the conversation? Say hello!
Twitter - @anura
Email – anuradha.sridharan@gmail.com
Blogs – http://anusridhar.blogspot.in
http://anura.blogspot.in