Example Reflection –Learning Launch

1.  Challenge

Our company decided to invest in an online education platform on financial education issues with  the intention of marketing these courses in the cooperative sector, in higher education colleges  and the general public in Colombia.

The technology on which the platform was assembled was revised and modernized and  additionally a pedagogical and instructional review was made to allow meeting the pedagogical  requirements of the schools.

Additionally, a digital marketing process was started, generating paid campaigns on Google and  Facebook in order to attract attention to the courses to potential customers and users. Contacts  were also made with some public and private schools and officials from the Bogotá and Chía  mayors.

However, after a year of starting the project, the commercialization had not generated the  expected results in either of the two selected market segments despite having a very good quality  product, faced with the decision to continue with the project or not.

2.  Selection

As Stephan Naumann indicated in his lesson on Test Launches in Module 4 of the Design Thinking Course at  the University of Darden, we in the company made a business plan and analyzed it theoretically  and with the knowledge available on our part (limited because the line was new) and the business  partner (whose main strength was to be the pedagogical expert) and we launched ourselves to  execute it without previous tests.

However, given that the results were not occurring after more than a year of having started and  taking into account that the company was not in a position to make major investments in the  project, it was decided before aborting the project to seek a less traditional approach to refine the  business model and we found in the test launch methodology an interesting and appropriate  alternative to “learn quickly and cheaply”.

3.  Application

Before deciding to use the chosen model, we had been operating the Financial Education  Courses for free in four public schools in the Municipality of Chía (Colombia) with a view  to publicizing the product and achieving that in 2020 it could be switched to a paid

modality achieving that an item was included in the budget of these schools to be able to  pay for the service.

Additionally, the aim was to generate referrals to other schools, thus seeking to link a  greater number of schools. However, seeing that the inclusion in the budget of this item  was not easy because the subject of financial entrepreneurship in which this course was  being included was not part of the formal curriculum and that investment decisions were  not the exclusive power of the rectors the aforementioned revision stop was made to  rethink the continuity of the model.

Following the methodology defined by the model, the following elements were  established:

• Hypothesis: There is a significant number of people and entities that need training in

financial education and are willing to pay for an excellent product and we have such a  product which surpasses the products available in the market to meet this need.

• People: Among the potential clients, the following types of people were identified:

 Individuals interested in acquiring financial education to achieve proper and

responsible management of their finances and to be able to generate financial  stability and / or successfully advance in their ventures.

 Cooperatives that within their social mission and support their associates want to

offer them training in financial education.

 Higher Education Colleges that as part of their training programs must include

Financial Education topics to comply with the national government guidelines  aimed at increasing financial inclusion (which in Colombia is well below developed  countries) and improving PISA-type exam results that include such content.

• The need: To have a high quality financial education program which is not geared

towards selling you a financial product as is the case with most available programs.

• The idea that meets the need: The financial education program which consists of

three courses that cover the basic concepts required to make efficient use of financial  resources and products:   Finance from home   Finances for entrepreneurs   Technical analysis

• Better than current alternatives: In our review of the products offered, most are

shallow courses developed by financial institutions to meet a Financial Education  requirement of the Financial Superintendence and to promote the consumption of  their products . On the other hand, there is an offer of seminars that promise to  change the mentality regarding money and remain on motivational aspects and few  practical recommendations.

Therefore, it was decided to set up a pilot course with students from various schools,  including public and private, some cooperatives and a representative sample of individual  users with which to test our hypothesis and the basic assumptions of the business model  described above.

4.  Insight

As a result of applying the Learning Release Tool, our team identified our hypotheses and  assumptions and designed releases to test these assumptions. In addition, we thought  about the possible results and how they would confirm or distort our assumptions  through sprints similar to those we use in the company for software development.

To date, we have not yet finished redefining the product's business model, nor are we  fully certain that we will achieve that the business idea is the successful undertaking we  want with a presence not only nationally but also internationally, but we are sure that the

path we are traveling is the best approach to achieve it and that if we are wrong in our  assumptions along this way we will know it as quickly and cheaply as possible.

5.  Approach

What we have learned as a team from carrying out this exercise is that the design of new  products, especially technology, requires a less traditional approach and that Design  Thinking tools such as Launch Design allow us to mature the business idea and gaining  knowledge iteratively without incurring large capital investments that ultimately do not  generate any results after a considerable time.

We have decided to implement this methodology for the development of new products in  the line of innovative solutions and we are seeking to apply it also for other types of  internal change initiatives in which the level of certainty and available information is not  the most adequate to handle it with traditional tools.

