How To Apply Design Thinking To Customer Development
A Prescription For Innovation
For entrepreneurs with a concept or early-stage startup, there is a problem/solution fit before product/market fit. This also couldn’t be more the case when launching a new project or spinning out a venture within a large enterprise.
According to Simon-Kucher & Partners, customers don’t care about seven out of 10 new products introduced to the market. One way to ensure customers want your product is by having a strong value proposition.
Utilizing design thinking tools allows you to design products and services that customers want regardless of the size of your enterprise. Excellent tools can be a prescription for innovation, such as:
- Sailboat
- Empathy Map
- Lean Canvas
- Cover Story
Design thinking and customer development are both customer discovery processes. However, if you want to get it right before making big bets while optimizing for speed on limited resources, then these processes are a winning combination.
View the following presentation to learn how you can apply design thinking to customer development at your enterprise:
If you’re scaling disruptive innovations with new business models, then you are targeting non-consumers of a category. This increases the level of difficulty and rate of failure. But sometimes the problems are well defined and can be solved through design thinking exercises.
These are just four ways to apply design thinking to customer development. Still, when facilitated appropriately, they provide a strong foundation for defining the current state, understanding the customer, making a business case, and visioning success.
