Reflection – Learning Launch

Challenge    A college friend and I were brainstorming ideas for T-shirt logos. An idea we came up with was  to design logos that took, what we thought was, a humorous take on campus Greek  Organizations. As my friend and I are both in agriculture related fields our ideas related to the  Greek alphabet and farm animals.  We came up with several ”Greek” logos that included Kappa  Cow Pi, Sigma Pigma Pi, Lambda Lamb, Gamma Goat, and Delta Dog. Each logo would have  traditional Greek letters, however the animal was represented by a silhouette of the respective  animals head.  Below each logo were captions fitting the logo and the college theme. For  instance, under the Lambda Lamb symbol where the words “Ewe U.”  The Delta Dog logo’s  caption was “Bite U.”  Of course, “U.” is short for University.    While my friend and I thought the idea was great, we wondered would the T-shirts sell.  Would  the general public lay down their money to buy our product. Could the T-shirts generate  interest, word-of-mouth, and profitability. We needed to test our hypothesis that the T-shirts  would be a hit.    Selection    My friend and I had already used the design thinking visualization tool to draw our designs on  paper.  It was time to test our hypothesis by using the learning launch tool. The tool is used to  perform a quick experiment to either confirm or disconfirm a hypothesis using the facts and  data gathered from customers during the experiment.    Application    We decided to do a quick marketing test using only one of our “Greek” T-shirt logos to see if  customers liked our product.  Testing with only one logo allowed us to invest a small amount of  capital to perform the quick test.  The World Dairy Expo is an event where people from around  the world come to see the world’s best cows, products, and merchandise surrounding the dairy  industry.  What better place to test out our Kappa Cow Pi logo with the caption underneath  reading “Udder U.”    My friend and I set up a booth at the World Dairy Expo where we displayed, and sold, our  Kappa Cow Pi logo T-shirts.  We also had brochures to handout that included all of our “Greek”  logo designs, and our contact information.  We were there for one week.    Insight    The customer data that we received using the learning launch tool to do a quick experiment  was very valuable. We learned that other people also found our ‘Greek” logo humorous, and

were willing to spend their money to purchase our T-shirts.  In the one week at the World Dairy  Expo we were able to cover our expenses and make a profit. The brochures were a benefit as  well. Customers who saw our additional logos expressed interest in how to purchase the T- shirts with the various designs.  To sum it up, our hypothesis that the T-shirts would be a hit  was confirmed.    Approach    Having confirmed our hypothesis, it was decided to perform another learning launch.  This  time, we advertised our five “Greek” logo designs in one agriculture merchandise magazine.   The small experiment was to confirm or disconfirm if our T-shirt logos would sell to a broader  range than just the specific customers we targeted at the World Dairy Expo with our Kappa Cow  Pi design.      We learned that utilizing the learning launch tool a second time was the smart thing to do.   While we did not lose our ”shirts” in the catalog experiment, neither did we turn a large profit.   My friend and I decided to end our side business. We learned a lot and had a lot of fun along  the way. As I stated at the beginning, we are both in agricultural related fields and will use  design thinking many times in the future.      Salvador Cabrera

