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.
….
Announcement!
Elena needs beta testers! If you live in the US, are 8 years old or under, and have trouble falling asleep at night, sign up here.
…
A recap
If you are just joining, you can start at Part 1 to catch up.
In Part 7, Luisa (Elena’s 5 year old sister) officially joined the adventure. The girls went to Michaels to purchase materials to make their prototypes. Through the process, they learned:
- Narrow in on the best solution by using data, not assumptions.
- Prototypes shouldn’t be perfect. They should be good enough to use and learn from.
- Stay focused on your hypothesis and ideal state. Don’t let your prototype become bloated with unrelated scope creep.
Building the test.
Before Elena and Luisa start building the prototypes, they need to build their test. This will help inform how to prioritize the order and scope of their prototypes.
Elena and Luisa have lots of ideas and they could spend months testing every single one. That is a no go. For one, a 7 and 5 year old don’t have that level of patience.
But adults shouldn’t test that way either. To go fast with experimentation, work smarter, not harder.
That’s why Elena and Luisa are starting with their two big buckets of solutions: (1) catching bad dreams; and (2) creating good dreams.
Let’s learn which of those works the best, then tweak.
Easy as ABCD.
Elena and Luisa are going to test four versions to see which one wins. This will be a four night test where each version is used for one night.
Have a child under 8 years old who wants to be a beta tester?
Sign up here!
Here is a run down of the four versions:
→ Version A
This is the control group. The control is technically part of the test, but the experience is just whatever a child’s normal bedtime routine is. The control group will allow Elena and Luisa to determine whether their solutions are better than nothing. For all they know, their solutions could make it harder to fall asleep!
→ Version B
The hypothesis for Version B is:
→ Version C
The hypothesis for Version C is:
→ Version D
The hypothesis for Version D is:
Cake to cake comparisons.
To capture the results of the test, I help the girls create a form that they can use themselves and also give to their beta testers.
Elena is not happy that the experiment will take four whole days.
“Why can’t Luisa test one, I test one, Dad tests one, and you test one? Then it will only take one night instead of four,” Elena asks.
“Well….,” I stall to think for a minute. She is actually somewhat correct. When you run an AB Test, you typically pick two similar populations of people and give them each a different experience.
Elena is running a small shop here so she can’t go out and find a large number of kids with similar demographics who also struggle to fall asleep, divide them into four groups, and plan for statistically significant results.
She’s got to hack this test. As Teresa Torres says, don’t let lack of “traffic” stop you from learning.
“For one,” I say, “Dad and I aren’t kids, and we don’t need help falling asleep. So these products wouldn’t be for us. You want to know if kids can fall asleep better with your prototypes.”
“Ok, then Luisa can do two and I can do two,” Elena counters. This girl is always negotiating!
An important thing to note is that Elena and Luisa are very different at bedtime. Luisa falls asleep in 5 minutes while it takes Elena at least 45 minutes. Dividing the versions between the two girls would definitely not be an apples to apples comparison.
“We need to know which one works best for you out of all of the options,” I explain. “Let’s say we have three kinds of cake — chocolate, vanilla, and red velvet. (I don’t know why cakes popped into my mind.) And we are trying to decide which is the tastiest. You take a bite of the chocolate cake…”
“I like red velvet,” Elena interjects.
“You take a bite of red velvet,” I revise, “I take a bite of vanilla, and Luisa takes a bite of chocolate. We all say our cake tastes delicious. How do we know which is the most delicious?”
“Red velvet. It is the most delicious,” Elena says confidently.
Things are getting off track. Why did I pick cake? And how do you measure “deliciousness”? As a parent, you often have to explain complex concepts to your kids. Sometimes, you nail it. Other times, not so much.
“To know for sure red velvet is most delicious, you need to try all three,” I continue. “And I try all three, and Luisa tries all three. And if we all pick red velvet as the most delicious, then it must be the most delicious.”
I’ve got to finish this train wreck of an explanation.
“So, to know which prototype helps you fall asleep the best, you need to try all four versions,” I conclude.
“Ok,” Elena replies. I’m not sure she really gets it, but I tried my best.
“Can we have cake for dessert tonight?” she asks. She definitely missed the point.
…
→ Read Part 9: Building their prototypes.
…
Want to know what Elena does next?
Follow, like, subscribe or whatever the kids are saying nowadays to get the latest update on Elena’s journey → Medium | Instagram | Linkedin | Twitter
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!
