Venture Design Crash Course for Women’s Startup Lab

This is a 2-day intensive for Women’s Startup Lab.

Part 1: Solving the Right Problem

Slides

Coursera References

NOTE: It looks like you have to pay to take the Coursera courses, but, rest assured, there is an audit-only option if you progress through the sign-up process.

Course 1: Agile Meets Design Thinking

This course has detail on creating personas, problem scenarios, and conducting design research. Week 3 is a clinic on linking those to user stories.

Course 2: Running Design Sprints

This course describes the specific preparation and execution for running 5 day design sprints. The sprints are divided into four types: problem, motivation, usability, and (product) architecture.

Course 4: Running Experiments with Agile

The first portion of this course provides more depth on running experiments on motivation (Lean Startup), and usability.

Homework

0. Draft a Positioning Statement & Business Model Canvas (.5 – 1 hour)

Positioning Statement Template

Business Model Canvas Tutorial

Business Model Canvas Template: Business Model Canvas PDF or Business Model Canvas on Google Slides

1. Draft a working set of personas (1 – 3 hours)

Personas Tutorial

Personas Template

2. Draft a working set of problem scenario-alternative-value proposition trios. (.5 – 2 hours)

(see above for tutorial and template)

3. Finish a working interview guide to validate your persona and problem hypotheses. (<1 hour for 1st take)

Customer Discovery Handbook

Interview Guide Template

4. Complete at least 5 customer interviews. (~1 hour/subject, not including subject recruitment)

Template for Taking Notes (Reminder: More detail is good here. A good interview transcript may look very different to you 1 month, 3 months, 6 months in the future as your perspective evolves. I like to just touch type while I’m interviewing. The transcript is a mess but then I clean it up after the fact.)

5. Finish a working product hypothesis. (.25 hours)

Product Hypothesis Template

6. Draft a working set of assumptions around your value hypothesis 

Lean Startup Tutorial

Assumptions Template

7. Design experiments to test your value hypothesis

Experiment Template

8. Execute your experiments!

See above. This is where a lot of the action happens! Be scrappy, be creative. Make sure you have a clearly delineated value proposition(s) and challenge yourself to think of something you can do in 24 hours.

Part 2: Building the Right Solution

Slides

Coursera References

NOTE: It looks like you have to pay to take the Coursera courses, but, rest assured, there is an audit-only option if you progress through the sign-up process.

Course 1: Agile Meets Design Thinking

This course has detail on creating personas, problem scenarios, and conducting design research. Week 3 is a clinic on linking those to user stories.

Course 2: Running Design Sprints

This course describes the specific preparation and execution for running 5 day design sprints. The sprints are divided into four types: problem, motivation, usability, and (product) architecture.

Homework

1. Draft a working set of epics and child stories (.5-2 hours)

User Stories Tutorial

User Stories Template

2. For at least one of the above, identify patterns and comparables

Software Prototyping Tutorial

2. For at least one of the above, draft a prototype in Balsamiq

Software Prototyping Tutorial

3. Design a usability test plan with the above (see bit.ly/playent for a template)

Customer Discovery Handbook (see section on Usability Hypothesis)

User Testing Template

4. Carry out 3 usability tests

(see above)

5. Create a Moodboard & Define a Style Guide

Tutorial: The 25 Minute Style Guide 

Brand Lattice (free tool to create moodboard)

Style Guide Template on Google Docs