digital wallet app? Tell me more…
Here is a quick example of how you can differentiate your product from the rest, based on design thinking.
Context
Product brief
Recently, I found a business case about a digital wallet app that implements peer-to-peer payments and would be used to make transactions at a convenience store and send money to other users inside that app. As we might know, the Mexican market relies on cash, so one of the goals of this product is to help the unbanked population send money without forcing them to change their lifestyle. On the other hand, providing a secure way to send money to the banked population needs to be covered. I find an interesting approach to solving this business case, and I’d like to share my perspective.
Objective
Develop a peer-to-peer payment solution that includes online money transfer functionalities and physical interfaces for a non-digital target segment (in person at an ATM or other physical locations).
Jobs to be done
- Bridging banked and unbanked population
- Storing money somewhere trusted
- Getting paid by clients
Let’s get started
The business model:
Based on Starbuck’s payment model where they skip the interchange fees when their clients pay through their mobile app. I came up with the following idea:
“What if we could replicate that model using a convenience store as a payment processor.”
Instead of interchanging money from acquirer banks, we will create a “credit system” for transferring money from one user to another (actually it would only update balance because the main idea is that the money is saved in a holding account so we can skip the interchange fee).
There will be no charging fees for cash-in. Users could do it in any convenience store as well as within the app. You only need a phone number and a token confirmation to transfer/pay to others.
Primary Jobs to be done
Cash In:
- Unbanked population: Using convenience stores as cash in point, we will create virtual accounts and associate them with regular phone numbers. In that way, you will not need a smartphone to operate.
- Banked population: They would download the wallet app and will be associate in the same way with their phone numbers.
Cash-out:
- Unbanked and Banked: Using the convenience store you could cash out the money with a transaction fee, if they happen to have a banking account, they could SPEI themselves but it will be a fee as well.
An exploration idea: partner with a bank so you could create N2 accounts whenever someone wants to cash-out. In that way, you will create a banking account in the background and if they want to cash-out they could do it “free” in any partner’s ATM. If they want to do an SPEI to a different bank would be a fee as well.
Based on the information above, let’s try to break down a strategy:
Product design
Phase one: Understanding
- Rethinking the challenge: As you might think, aiming for both market segments (unbanked and banked population) would not be the best at the beginning of the design thinking project, so I ended up choosing the unbanked Mexican population based on previous secondary and quantitative research efforts. (I will update this story with the references later)
- Framing: Now that we have a narrow approach, let’s try to understand the selected target, so I came up with the idea of creating a pronto-persona to generate hypotheses and discover opportunities. What I did was gather all the input information I had and debrief it in a way that would let me compare it when the information I will receive from the following phases.
Phase Two: Explore
- Divergence: Once we are done with the theory, we will try to deep dive and do some primary research to validate our hypothesis.
- Creating insights: In this phase, we might find as well pain points, unattended needs, and other relevant information. It is important to remember the goal of the exercise or you could end in an endless information road.
- Convergence: Try to keep in mind that all your research effort would not add value as separate data, so running a debrief exercise will help to preserve it ordered.
Phase Three: Materialize
As this is a design thinking strategy exercise, this topic is not widely covered but I will mention some activities to keep in mind.
- Defining Key features: This would never be a one man’s job but a team activity. Don’t forget to involve the target in this activity, their feedback is rock-solid gold and would save you tons of work later.
- Prioritize: Once you are done with the features, prioritize them so you can work first on the ones that cover the value proposition.
- User stories: Breaking down features into user stories.
