Entrepreneurial Design: book inspiration of the month

Sprint: how to solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days, by Jake Knapp.

“Start at the end”

Jake writes about setting a long term goal on page 54: “When a big challenge comes along . . . it’s natural to want to solve it right away. The clock is ticking. But if you don’t first slow down, share what you know, and prioritize, you could end up wasting time and effort on the wrong part of the problem.”

My end goal is to change the entire landscape of Central Texas suburbs into healthy and healthful ecosystems through native plants, grasses, and trees.

That’s a massive goal that seems impossible. So, I had to ask myself, how I could make this happen, or better yet, who could make this happen? And I thought homeowners is a good start because they are the primary decision makers of what goes into their yards after they have moved in.

My goal for this project is to get more homeowners to utilize plants native to the Central Texas area in their landscaping so that they not only decrease the amount of maintenance but also help create a healthy environment for much needed bugs and critters.

Assumptions

“Lurking behind every goal are dangerous assumptions.” (Knapp, 56)

I had a hunch (from personal experience and from chatting with neighbors over the fence) that people really struggle with yard maintenance. While folks kind of know that plants appropriate to this climate are best, they really have no idea what native plants are, how to find them, and how important they are beyond low-maintenance curb appeal.

I needed to map out the path I assumed homeowners take when they want to use native plants. This exercise ended up producing a lot of questions and revealing my assumptions:

From these questions, I built a survey and a set of interview questions for homeowners. I needed to test my assumptions and find out more about their pain points.

From 7 surveys and interviews, I identified major pain points, motivations, and opportunities. The most helpful was realizing people mostly shop for plants in-person. Even though they are too busy to go to workshops, and even though they do their research for plants online, they still go to a nursery or store to pick out their plants and talk to nursery employees. This was an important piece of information to note since it will affect the delivery method of my product.

Ask the Experts

Jake Knapp has a great chapter dedicated to learning from subject matter experts. Experts speed up the research process tremendously through providing the following:

strategic experience,

the voice of the customer,

an understanding of how things currently work, and

any previous efforts. (70–71, Knapp)

After talking to homeowners, I really wanted to know what already exists to address their pain points. One obvious solution is membership and participation in the very active Native Plant Society of Texas (NPSOT). They have a chapter in Austin as well as surrounding communities. I wondered what they offered in terms of resources, training, and plants. I felt if I could understand NPSOT a little better, I could think about how my product would connect customers to NPSOT, or at least its resources.

So, I reached out via the NPSOT website, and got an email from an enthusiastic native plant gardener around 10pm that night. She and I talked the next day! And then she immediately introduced me to other members. I have 3 survey responses, and 3 phone interviews, chalk full of information.

I have yet to put it all to paper, but I have already mentally started the “How Might We” exercise from Jake’s book:

How might we connect homeowners to NPSOT resources?

How might we leverage NPSOT’s most impactful events like plant sales?

How might we encourage membership and participation?

How might we alleviate homeowners’ pains by introducing them to NPSOT?

I think I have a lot of ideas that need to be fleshed out, prototyped, and tested — ready for the next phase!