#venture design

[parkparadigm]

The parallels between the design of buildings and cities allow for a systems thinking approach to the design of financial services. This goes beyond the fintech of online or app-based banking to imagine what financial services look like when they serve all aspects of life. For financial and tech leaders looking to build a new industry, they should consider the complexity and integration of architecture and the built environment.

Tech Needs Architects

[parkparadigm]

If we apply a systems view of the world to design, we can also develop designs for business models. And if we further combine product design with business model design, we can design businesses in their entirety.

Designing for Spooky Coincidence

[parkparadigm]

...the consensus is that the line between learning and working, corporate and educational institutions has been blurred. For good.

https://medium.com/hacking-finance/the-anthemis-fellowship-who-we-are-and-what-we-believe-ba2832fd2470#.qgn3k2wno

[parkparadigm]

With the realisation that traditional internal innovation is not enough, and that external innovation is plentiful but unruly and difficult to digest, corporates are creating an “interface” to better interact with the external world, bringing it to their internal universe. This new innovation interface model is being built via a combination of a corporate venture capital arm, an incubator or innovation lab arm and/or a dedicated innovation group. In order to maximise success, this new innovation “interface” combining various functions needs a new process.

Are you sure you want to innovate like a startup? | Pascal Bouvier, CFA | Pulse | LinkedIn

Pretty close to intial thesis for creating Anthemis Group as a piece of “organisational middlewear” between incumbent and startup businesses. The need for this has always been manifest to us, and it’s encouraging to see this starting to become received wisdom.

[hackingfinance]

Venture Design is what we will be doing at the Anthemis Foundry. Because Financial Services is an ecosystem where a market opportunity for digital disruption has been visible for some time, but where path to get there has only recently emerged, now is the time to do it.

http://davidgalbraith.org/anthemis/venture-design-and-the-anthemis-fintech-foundry/3895/

[jie-yang]

Thoughts from Venture Design

As designer, we always talk about how to introduce design into companies without a sense of design and convince them the potential benefits. This is really a hard job back in my country as designers are basically more focused on techniques while have a limited methodology to help them redefine a company. What is more interesting is that most so-called design-led companies are founded by non-designers. This is practicable, because some products are so simple and people can design it with little help from professionals. I think lean startup gives a chance to let design increase its value because it offers designers the opportunity to get involved in business.

Business plan competition has been replaced by business model competition these years. Design thinking and the methodology of lean startup complements each other’s back. This is good news and I can’t wait to test it. But what worried me now is how to convert a traditional company into the “lean startup systems”, by sending people to the company? How to convince them the feasibility? How to get a smooth transformation with less benefits and energy lost? It’s quite easy to carry out in a small startup with several young people who are willing to innovate. But what about the ones already have stable revenue. Maybe I can figure it out later.

Another thing I want to talk about is how the idea of lean startup changed my mind of what is a good design. There is always a debate on this topic among designers. Some people think a good design is a design that can shock you at first glance while some other people think a good design is not a good design until it has a good response from market. I stand for the latter one for quite a long time and the idea of lean startup enhanced my understanding. A good design is easy to use and can be forget by users when using it. Lean startup offers the way to perfect design in the market aspect. As long as this aspect is done, a design is ready for the world and has a greater chance to be a good design.

[asdesignas-blog]

Venture Design Week 4: Coaches Landing!

By Soffee

For this week, we decided that we simultaneously run two tests: running the product/service test while figuring out the DDP.

For the product part, our team decided that we should start from ourselves, putting our own profile as “coaches” and see if we can attract some possible applicants. I designed the testing pages, including the landing page, the coach profile page and also the personal page for each coach by Unbounce, which is a quick and easy way to put some pages online. Check out the website here:(http://coach.loopo.co/currentcoaches/)

We created an “application form” and fill out our personal profile, providing information such as education background, working experience and services we can offer. As for contact info, we left our school e-mail address and also WeChat ID. Applicants can also find us by scanning QR code of our WeChat ID.

The testing was launched this afternoon and we’re also planning sending some posters through our personal connection with Universities in China. The number of contacts we received can be the measurement. Since our star feature “coach matching ” is not available at this stage, the result of the test can only tell how our marketing strategy works. Anyway, if an applicant wants to contact us, that means in his/her thinks we match to some extent. 

[asdesignas-blog]

Venture Design Week 2-3: Readings

By Soffee

Few weeks ago, our developer was extremely enthusiastic about Lean startup methods that he suggested running an A/B test to test our concept and he’s gonna code it for 3 months. And we were all like: Are you serious?? Coding for 3 months just for a concept test?

But it turns out that A/B testing can be used in a more elegant and efficient way. In the Etsy presentation, it’s good to know that the method of A/B testing are used to test different assumptions and detailed user experience. And it’s also good to know in class that this kind of testing method is usually used after several rounds of iteration. But I recently found that Unbounce it providing the A/B testing function too. I think is less about when to use the methods, but more about how to choose the right methods according to the current resources and limitations.

This Monday, I attend the first presentation of New Venture Challenge at Chicago Booth. My teammates have done a very good job presenting. The judges were kind of impressed by our progress. Few weeks ago, our product was a social networking site and we didn't know clearly what problems we’re solving and how we’re gonna make money. Thus I feel deeply connected to the article by Steve Blank. I’m not sure if business model is the “first principle”-my designer self still think that users are the most important element. However, I have to admit that from the moment we pivoted the business, at least everything started to make sense. The whole process is painful. It took us months to accept the fact that we should make changes because we’re emotionally attached to our original product. But I guess this is what it takes.

And the Amazon article surprised me a little. I used to think giant company like Amazon must have made a lot of money. It’s hard to believe that they’re actually losing millions with their products and service seems to be everywhere. I didn’t really witness how Amazon has expand its e-commerce empire step by step, but as a foreigner, I kind of got the impression that it’s the default platform for online shopping. And clearly, Amazon has the ambition to grow their business around the world, but they have to deal with different situations and figure out new solutions. Take China for example, some successful service cannot be duplicated into China market because the shopping behaviors and attitude are totally different.