Challenge & Selection    I’m co-founder of a startup aimed to disrupt the entry-level job market in Brazil. Our challenge  is to build a design that would meet our customer’s needs – pain of it’s stakeholders – and  move forward prototyping our MVP. We are a team of 3 co-founders, one of us has more than  15 years of experience in our field of choice. The other two are functional experts but without  previous experience in this market. I decided to use Mind Mapping to improve our confidence  levels to understand the customers’ real needs. We have collected a large set of data from the  three different groups that form our customer base – college students, companies, universities.  While this data is very insightful, I want to go deeper and investigate what they are not telling  us and also to level the understanding of the business among the three of us.    Application    I started by hanging large posters in our office, large enough to anyone see from a short  distance. Then I pulled the personas and mind maps we have created during the process of  building this startup. Also used insights that we (3 the co-founders) gained by analyzing the  surveys we did with our customers. Each poster included data from one group of stakeholders –  one for students, one for companies, one for universities. Besides the data we also included  short quotes made by us during our journey of building the initial prototype of the business.    Next step was to invite a group of 30 people, 10 for each stakeholder segment, for a session in  our office. We divided them in 5 groups of 6 people, containing 2 representatives of each  segment per group. Gave them a marker and two stacks of post-its of different colors.    After a brief introduction I invited them to browse the content in the posters hung in the office.  Giving them 20 minutes to get familiar with the content in the walls. The goals was for them to  individually note any learnings that would find or write down new ideas – using the post-its.    At the end of the 20minutes tour they have returned to their original small group to share their  insights with others to now, as a group, combine the patterns they found and separate them in  cluster of stakeholders. After combining the learnings we have created a new set of insights and  connections about our stakeholders for each group.    Then the challenge was to translate the insights and connections into design criteria. To  accomplish that we asked them “If anything were possible, our design would..” It created a list  of criteria that we wrote down in a flip chart. Each group created their own list.     At the end, as a large group, I asked them to browse one another’s charts, discuss the criteria  and build a “master list” of the ideal design.    Insight & Approach

It is amazing to compare the initial individual list to the master list. A surprising degree of  consensus emerged about the desired features for the new design. It helped our small team of  co-founders to gain a deeper understanding about their inner needs, that haven’t emerged in  surveys, but we could gain by using Mind Mapping tool. Initially we’re very scared about open it  to our customers to be part of the process. Afraid that it could potentially expose our  weaknesses and derail their confidence in our company. But the outcome was very positive,  we’ve gained even more engaged customers to our company, eager to use the new version of  the product that they helped to create. This is the power of co-creation, it creates more loyal  customers, advocates for the product that they helped to build.


Challenge & Selection I ’m co - founder of a startup aimed to disrupt the entry - level job market in Brazil . Our challenge is to build a design that would meet our customer ’s needs – pain of it ’s stakeholders – and move forward prototyping our MVP . We are a team of 3 co - founders , one of us has more than 15 years of experience in our field of choice . The other two are functional experts but without previous experience in this market . I decided to use Mind Mapping to improve our confidence levels to understand the customers ’ real needs . We have collected a large set of data from the three different groups that form our customer base – college students , companies , universities . While this data is very insightful , I want to go deeper and investigate what they are not telling us and also to level the understanding of the business among the three of us . Application I started by hanging large posters in our office , large enough to anyone see from a short distance . Then I pulled the personas and mind maps we have created during the process of building this startup . Also used insights that we ( 3 the co - founders ) gained by analyzing the surveys we did with our customers . Each poster included data from one group of stakeholders – one for students , one for companies , one for universities . Besides the data we also included short quotes made by us during our journey of building the initial prototype of the business . Next step was to invite a group of 30 people , 10 for each stakeholder segment , for a session in our office . We divided them in 5 groups of 6 people , containing 2 representatives of each segment per group . Gave them a marker and two stacks of post - its of different colors . After a brief introduction I invited them to browse the content in the posters hung in the office . Giving them 20 minutes to get familiar with the content in the walls . The goals was for them to individually note any learnings that would find or write down new ideas – using the post - its . At the end of the 20minutes tour they have returned to their original small group to share their insights with others to now , as a group , combine the patterns they found and separate them in cluster of stakeholders . After combining the learnings we have created a new set of insights and connections about our stakeholders for each group . Then the challenge was to translate the insights and connections into design criteria . To accomplish that we asked them “ If anything were possible , our design would .. ” It created a list of criteria that we wrote down in a flip chart . Each group created their own list . At the end , as a large group , I asked them to browse one another ’s charts , discuss the criteria and build a “ master list ” of the ideal design . Insight & Approach It is amazing to compare the initial individual list to the master list . A surprising degree of consensus emerged about the desired features for the new design . It helped our small team of co - founders to gain a deeper understanding about their inner needs , that have n’t emerged in surveys , but we could gain by using Mind Mapping tool . Initially we ’re very scared about open it to our customers to be part of the process . Afraid that it could potentially expose our weaknesses and derail their confidence in our company . But the outcome was very positive , we ’ve gained even more engaged customers to our company , eager to use the new version of the product that they helped to create . This is the power of co - creation , it creates more loyal customers , advocates for the product that they helped to build .