When print turns a new page: Innovation and design, the driving force behind change.
Part 1: CREATING A NEW BUSINESS.
With Paris Turf, a group of specialist equestrian magazines, preparing to launch, Exalt training, a specialist sports monitoring product for racehorse trainers, we wanted to share the details this groundbreaking project with you through a few articles.
This article is the first installment in a series of three dedicated to Exalt training. Exalt training is a cutting-edge project managed by Souffl, a creative agency and radical innovator, for Paris Turf a French group of specialist sports and equestrian betting magazines.

Creating a new business
September 2015: For a few months, the management team at Paris Turf has been formulating their business strategies for the coming three years. Already number one in equestrian media, the group needs a more daring approach to create new revenues in order to diversify for the future, however, there remains one rather large question, how do you create the business of tomorrow?
1 — Planning a route.
Naturally, the starting point of this project was to immerse ourselves in the group’s history to get the essence of the what they do and their specialisms. First of all we met with the Paris Turf teams who are visibly passionate about not only horse racing, but also stat and figures, predicting and analysing data. The ‘data culture’ and deep understanding of its value is at the centre of who Paris Turf are, it’s in their blood and it would be the starting block for our project.

From the first moment, we researched far and wide to investigate all the opportunities associated with data to showcase all the possibilities that lay before us for this project.
We created a visual aid of all the potential and creative routes, this vista of opportunity allowed the Paris Turf team to envisage, exchange and eventually decide on the path they wanted to follow: how to use and add value to data to offer new services to professionals in the equestrian sector.
At such an early stage of the creative process there’s no point in launching expensive market research projects and writing imaginary business plans. The answers to the questions you’re looking for is often found elsewhere.

We decided to go to hit the ground with the project managers from Paris Turf. A series of meetings was organised to understand the ecosystem of the equestrian world: the race organisers, the sporting associations, the racecourses, breeders, trainers, jockeys and vets. Following the meetings, one group of people started to stand out, the trainers. The trainer is the keystone of the industry and interacts with all the other parties throughout the horse’s life, spotting the potential, performance training, the management of its career and reproduction.

A second phase of more in depth interviews with different trainers allowed to us to better understand their needs, this would be the starting point for our ideas.
With the help of our research and a lot of imagination, we were able to produce a list of possible products and services aimed at trainers. Some ideas were ways of making their work easier and others to remedy problems they may be facing. Every idea had to be justified to check it was viable. Five concepts were developed in order to be pitched to the Paris Turf management team, one of which caught their attention right away The path was chosen.
Our immersion technique is key to our creative process, it allows us to spot opportunities for new products or services, using real first-hand knowledge and anchors the process in reality.


Design expertise is in Souffl’s DNA, allowing us to detect, identify opportunities and create solutions, but this process only happens by working closely in collaboration with our clients.
2 — The rythm.
The belief that speed is the key to innovation has been spread across start-up and innovative industries community, but innovation isn’t a sprint. To innovate is to explore and prepare a project from the very beginning. The phrase ‘Start-up’ can also be seen as meaning a push toward the future, to move a project forward, after the initial push, desire, dynamism and endurance are needed to see a project through to the end.

The desire to push forward with the Exalt training project needed to come from the Paris Turf’s entrepreneurial spirit. The creation and make-up of the team would be key to a project’s success, a very experienced small team of just five people with all the necessary skills in the key areas, business, science, technology and of course, design.
In order move forward and keep momentum in such a project, there is a need to be able to work outside of the usual internal structures of a company, whilst being able to tap the necessary knowledge and resources by creating a direct reporting system to the group’s management team, who have the decision making power.
An agreed timeline with set milestones against which progress and be measured is also a helpful tool. These techniques and management methods which we have developed at Souffl allowed us to visualise and share the progress of the the project and what was in the pipeline.

The client/end user at the centre of the project is ultimately the one who decides the dynamic, from the immersion sessions and interviews that we conducted with the trainers. This research period allowed us to understand all the aspects in great detail of the profil of the client/end user, saved months of time in the process. This design process alone isn’t thorough enough to carry a project, but it’s a fantastic way of streaming a project to develop it further.
The knowledge shared by the end user allowed us to develop a stronger concept to communicate the project teams, so they could move forward more quickly, each step of the way, with a better idea of the key features of the product and be more demanding of the overall design of the product.
3 — Approval.
The goal of the project was to create a new business using innovative technology, aimed towards professional’s in the horse training industry. The development of such a product would mean substantial financial investment, so approval was critical, before a single penny was spent in product development. At this stage it is importing to put in place a rigorous testing and approval process by developing potential commercial offers and value propositions and then testing them with the end client.
The most important factor of this process is not its speed but the value of the confirmation, success depends on a scientific approach. Whatever the prototype being tested, the test results are only as good as the testing method and how well they are carried out.

Once the list of expected features and the minimum acceptable standards have been approved, a complete specification must be created, this detail oriented work facilitates the calculation of financial estimates, the choice of partners and suppliers and the creation of a project route map.
In terms of financial viability, at this stage we’re not looking for concrete figures, but enough information to be able to imagine the sales approach and uses of the service. We won’t go into the details of the construction of our product here, but as for early stages of the project, our conversations and research with potential users allowed us to create ideas on subjects such as the level of expected service, the sales method, costs and revenue streams.
Once the feasibility has been proved and the profit margins have been estimated the project can enter the product development phase.
In the construction phase, the size of the team increases and our experts are put into play. Going from a small team of explorers to a business unit entails effectively communicating the project’s culture and the original vision of the project, this is not a simple task and we are still managing the process as these words are being written, guided by two forces, the desire to innovate and the shared knowledge of our client.


Find the other articles about the creation of Exalt training on Medium, and follow us on Facebook ou LinkedIn LinkedIn to be informed when the next articles are published.
Part two The importance of the design. Next week.
_
Souffl is a company specialising in design and innovation which, explorers, imagines and builds the future for their clients. Our radically creative technique and brings together, design, technology and business whilst relying on a methodology which is both inventive and innovative.We are based in Paris and Milan.
Souffl was founded in 2014 by three partners: Nicolas Baumgartner, Arnaud Carrette et Fabien Fumeron.
Sales contact: Arnaud@souffl.com
