A 7 year old’s journey to build grit through lessons in design thinking and entrepreneurship…with some help from her mom. Think of it like Product Management 101, but with a 1st grader.
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A recap
Elena is in the middle of her Design Thinking journey. To catch up, I recommend you start at Part 1.
In Part 9, Elena and her 5 year old sister, Luisa, created multiple prototypes to give to other kids and test their hypotheses.
Through that process, Elena learned:
- Prototypes don’t need to be perfect. They just need to be good enough to provide an opportunity to learn from your tests.
- Knowing the definition of grit isn’t the same as acting gritty when things go awry. Luckily, practicing grit, even imperfectly, can make you better at grit over time.
Now what?
“What are we doing today?” Elena asks. It’s Saturday and we have been spending every weekend the past few months working on her project.
“Well, you need to wait and hear back from your testers to learn what worked and what didn’t,” I respond.
“So, I can’t do anything today? I don’t want to stop. People are relying on me,” Elena says urgently.
She’s talking about you, by the way. You readers are the “people” she doesn’t want to let down.
“You aren’t stopping,” I reassure her. “You just get to do something different while you wait. Why don’t you learn about your competition?”
Not unique, but better.
“No one has done a dream book before,” Elena says confidently, referring to one of her prototypes.
“Let’s look,” I reply as I open up Amazon. I search for “dream journal for kids” and multiple options appear. Elena hangs her head in disappointment. Her idea already exists, so she feels like there is no space for her idea and no opportunity for her to succeed.
This happens all the time to entrepreneurs. Someone already had your idea, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. I like to say “your idea is so good, someone else had it too!”
The benefit to having someone else succeeding with your concept is that they have proven there is a market for your idea and that your solution is something people are willing to purchase. They did you a favor! Since those are proven, you can move on to validating other assumptions.
“It’s ok,” I assure her. “You don’t have to be the first one or the only one. You just need to be different, be better in some way.” Elena is still looking at the floor. She doesn’t believe me yet.
“Squishmallows weren’t the first stuffy to exist,” I continue. “LOL dolls aren’t the only dolls at Target. But you want them over all the other toys, don’t you?” Elena looks up.
“Yeah. Squishmallows are way cuddlier than other stuffies. I like how they are big and cute and can be pillows too,” Elena says. “And LOL dolls are so fun to open. You get so many surprises.”
“There you go! They both have something that makes them a little extra special. Later on, we can figure out what your extra dash of special will be. But for now, let’s see what other things kids can choose to help them fall asleep at bedtime.”
Using Mural, Elena captured lots of different things kids could use to help them fall asleep. The list included things she learned from her interviews at the park (back in Part 2), her prototype ideas, and some other ideas as well.
Next, I helped her group the items on the Mural board, but not every idea fits nicely into a single group. For example, Moshi (an app we love in this household!) is a mix of music, stories, and mindfulness.
I try to help her make sense of it all by creating a competitive landscape (also called market landscape) diagram. This visual helps capture some of those competitors that fall within multiple categories.
“Where do my ideas fit,” Elena asks.
“I don’t know,” I respond. Not what a 7 year old likes to hear. Her all knowing mother does not actually know the answer to everything.
Anticipating her next question, I say, “And this isn’t something that Siri knows either. We are going to have to figure it out by ourselves. Won’t that be fun?”
“How do we do that,” Elena asks.
“First, let’s learn more about the competition. Why don’t we try some of these things out? You can learn what they do well and what you think you can do better.”
“You mean we can buy toys and stuff,” Elena asks excitedly.
“Yes,” I reply. “It’s a business expense.”
I swear I can see her dopamine receptors firing off from a pre-shopping high. Next week is going to be a fun week for her.
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Want to know what Elena does next?
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You can also join this email list for an early bird announcement of the launch of Elena’s yet to be determined solution. She is still a ways away from this, but it’s never too early to start building your Kickstarter list!
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