Reflection  -  Learning  Launch

Challenge      Me  and  my  wife  both  are  working  in  a  Private  Firm  from  the  past  9  years.  We  both  are  creative

people  and  like  to  design  quirky  printed  clothes  as  a  hobby.  When  we  talk  to  our  family  and

friends,  we  get  to  know  that  there  is  no  good  quirky  print  designer  available  in  the  market  which

can  also  do  customization.  While  talking  to  them  we  also  got  to  know  that  customers  for  these

designs  are  in  the  range  of  18-45  years.     Me  and  my  wife  thought  this  idea  of  quirky  design  clothes  is  a  great  opportunity  for  us  to  explore

and  solve  many  people's  problems.  But  we  do  have  limitations,  first  we  can  not  leave  our

current  jobs  and  second,  investment  should  be  low  as  we  do  not  have  much  savings.       Selection     If  we  want  to  convert  our  idea  into  a  Business  plan,  first  we  need  to  know  the  unknown  which  is

how  the  customers  will  react  to  our  design.  Second,  we  also  needed  to  know  the  truth  of  our

assumptions,  which  is  that  our  designs  and  customization  features  are  better  than  the  existing

solutions  available  in  the  market.  To  know  these,  we  thought  to  use  one  Design  Thinking  tool  -

Learning  Launch.  Which  allows  us  to  do  small  experiments  and  learn  from  them.  These

experiments  would  also  help  us  to  know  customers'  behaviour  regarding  liking  and  disliking  our

designs  in  less  time  and  also  at  less  cost.       Application:     For  our  first  learning  launch,  we  uploaded  our  designs  on  social  networking  platforms  like

Facebook  and  Instagram,  as  these  platforms  are  easily  accessible  for  everyone  especially  to

our  potential  customers  (18-45  years)  who  are  mostly  active  on  social  media.  Considering  that

we  thought  this  was  a  good  way  to  start  the  experiment.  We  shared  our  social  media  page  with

friends  and  family  and  asked  them  to  do  the  same.  We  were  also  getting  feedback  from  the

customers  about  our  designs.  They  were  liking  the  designs  but  also  they  wanted  to  feel  that

design  as  well  as  they  can  not  touch  the  fabric  unless  they  buy  it.  So  we  understand  that  people

will  like  our  designs  if  they  can  see  it  as  well  as  if  they  can  feel  it  physically.     We  have  implemented  this  learning  in  our  second  learning  launch.  Now  we  are  more  clear

about  the  customers'  needs,  we  thought  to  participate  in  flea  markets.  So  that  customers  can

also  feel  the  fabric  and  can  try  as  well.  During  the  flea  market,  we  got  feedback  from  the

customers  regarding  designs,  colours,  fabrics  and  customization  services.  This  feedback  helped

us  to  prove  our  hypothesis  i.e.  whether  the  solution  we  are  giving  to  customers  is  better  than  the

existing  solutions  available  in  the  market  or  not.

Insight     By  applying  the  learning  launch  tool,  we  tested  our  assumptions  at  less  cost  and  in  less  time

which  otherwise  would  be  a  costly  affair.  We  have  also  learnt  that  learning  and  implementation

after  each  launch  is  important.  The  main  learning  for  us  is  to  put  yourself  in  your  customers

shoes.  After  this  insight  we  are  planning  to  launch  our  own  website.  For  the  next  step,  we  will

keep  in  mind  this  insight  and  incorporate  it  into  future  launch  designs.       Approach      After  understanding  the  problem  and  creating  ideas  for  that,  we  have  found  out  that  learning

launch  is  the  best  suited  tool  for  us  at  this  stage  as  it  saves  time  and  money.  As  already

mentioned  we  will  keep  in  mind  this  insight  and  will  incorporate  this  into  future  launch  designs,

as  this  is  a  powerful  tool  to  test  our  assumptions  and  generate  the  best  solution.

