20 Days Designing Your Customer
20 days out of 100 to prove and design 6 startups
At Moonwalk the most important thing to begin with when creating startups is first to have a clear mission, then identifying the customer and the real challenges the customer is facing.
Ludvig Nevland, my friend and previous Moonwalk Astronaut put it well:
“If you look at the world through the people you call customers and what you are helping them achieve you will be able to drown out the noise and identify what is truly relevant and important.”
This is exactly what we were working with in the past 20 days — we designed our customers by looking through their eyes on their challenges, their big pains and what jobs they need to get solved within the challenge.
Customers To Be Designed and Jobs To Be Done
The jobs they need to get done could be (1) functional, like ‘getting from A — B’, (2) social, like ‘catching up with friends’ or (2) emotional, like ‘getting peace of mind’. It is key that the jobs we focus on are within the challenges our startups are addressing. It’s a part of identifying the value we are creating.
In our startup, Instant Startup, we met hurdles and confusion on who was our real costumers, and which jobs brought the biggest pain to the customers. Starting with our mission to turn passion for creation into real business, we found three personas reflecting our customers, how their ‘starting a business’ journey looks like today, and how we can reinvent their journey for a better tomorrow.
Designing Your Team
It was not only the customers that we designed, we also designed our startup team of 6 people. As explained in my previous post there are two roles at Moonwalk — the Astronaut, working on-site at Moonwalk HQ every second weekend, and the Innovator, assisting with work online from anywhere.
Gathering the startup team for online meetings was crucial for everybody’s understanding of what Instant Startup is, where we are going, and the work to be done. Designing your team, being a team member or a team leader is a valuable experience you gain from joining Moonwalk.
Learning From Your Co-Workers
The biggest progress was made when the whole Moonwalk team gathered for shared presentations of every startup, presenting our work — our missions and designed customers. The feedback received was of great significance for all the startups, leading to both minor and essential changes and improvements for everyone. The shared presentations also brought understanding to each other’s work, turning us into that big whole Moonwalk team again, after weeks of individual startup team work.
This made me learn the importance of involving others and collaborating when being in a co-working environment.
Proving Your Customer
After learning how to design customers, startup team and collaboration, our mission is fully set, and our designed customers are ready to be proven.
Next job — proving that our customer exists; that our assumptions for the customer are correct and that our customer wants our promise.
Follow my experience as a Moonwalk Astronaut in the next coming 100 days sprint to reinvent learning. The Moonwalk Astronaut Blog
My name is Marcus, Moonwalk Astronaut #032
I will take you through the Moonwalk experience from the eyes of a participant.
I’m an optimist and explorer on a journey to improve learning for a more joyful planet.
