04 Important Themes
Understanding your customer & Value propositioning (Persona, Customer Journey, VPC)
Scope
Lack of a customer problem is among the top reasons why companies fail. This topic aims to introduce the concept of customer research and its importance. This block starts with examples of customer research, how to design it and what are the tools that will help us match problems with personas. It also covers data analysis and approaches on how to extract valuable user insight around which unique value propositions can be designed
Topics addressed
- Empathic research based on design thinking and service design principles,
- Research design,
- Persona creation,
- Data processing and insights extraction,
- Proposition design,
- Customer journey development,
- Concept validation
- Value Proposition Canvas
Useful material: TETRA presentation
Scoping Market size
Scope
Overview of the tools (TAM, SAM, SOM) and calculations required to do an estimation of the market or in other words, the size of the problem.
Topics addressed
- Total Addressable Market,
- Serviceable Addressable Market,
- Share of Market,
- Aspects of Risk and Potential,
- Other aspects linked to market such as barriers to entry
- Calculation of the TAM, SAM and SOM for the respective challenges that the teams are solving
Useful material: TETRA presentation
Business Model Canvas Explained
Scope
Understanding the mechanics of value generation is key for any company. Business Model Canvas is an important tool since it guides companies during the whole venture expansion and makes sure that no important aspect of a company is left out
Topics addressed
- Introduction to Business Model Canvas
- 9 individual aspects of the canvas
Useful material: TETRA presentation
How to find customers for your solution? Advanced business modelling, customer validation
Scope
What it is that we can find out from our future customers before we start selling to them and what are the riskiest assumptions in our business model. This topic focuses on customer validation and the business model canvas, customer research and riskiest assumption testing
Topics addressed
- Introduction into customer research
- Riskiest assumption testing
- Solution/market fit,
- Methodology for validation,
- Testing of users,
- How to analyze potential target markets and market entry (internationalization)
Useful material: TETRA presentations:
Customer-centric approaches for customers discovery
Topics addressed
- Understanding your customer through customer research & definition of riskiest assumptions. Getting to know the customer-centric approaches for customer discovery
- How to create a roadmap to test your hypotheses, validate them and find your first customers along the way. Gather hypotheses, create interview script, build a roadmap and test test test.
Useful material: TETRA presentations:
New markets: Proposition validation
Topics addressed
- Market selection part of starting in a new market
- Why move to a new market?
- Problem validation
- Solution validation
- Identifying riskiest assumptions
Useful material: TETRA presentation
Self-audit your business. Are you ready to scale?
Topics addressed
- Product Market Fit
- Scalable Lead Generation
- Operational Efficiency
- Profitability and Growth
- Expansion and financing
Useful material: TETRA presentation
Business models for the Next Generation Internet
Scope
Present different types of business models, from the most basic “direct sale” models all the way to software/product-as-a-service and other hybrid models suitable for open source, their differences and suitability for particular situations. What these business models could mean for your project and what are the prerequisites to execute them successfully
Topics addressed
- Introduction to business models: Definition of a business model, its basic features and evolution over time
- How do business models differ, when to use which? Business models that we know today, inspiring examples of various applications
- Business models for non-profit? Guidance on how to find a fitting business model, how-to’s and advice for not purely profit driven projects
Useful material: TETRA presentation
Visibility and Growth Hacking
Scope
Focus on the importance of having a communication and visibility early on in a startup's life. In the world where digital marketing costs are increasing and usable attention span on users is declining, it is very important to focus on activities which "hack" the acquisition of users. Presentation of acquisition funnels and experiment-based marketing, incl. practical exercise suggestions
Topics addressed
- Why is visibility important to startups?
- What is Growth Hacking
- Introduction to conversion funnels
- How to create marketing experiments
- Where to take growth having next?
Useful material: TETRA presentation
From lab to market generated revenue: Finding customers and getting your go-to market strategy off the ground
Scope
Focus on importance of thinking about go-to market strategy early on in product/service development cycle, identification of possible early adopters and how to come up with ways of getting more insights from them, specifics of crafting a proposition and the importance of customer testing, incl. practical exercise suggestions
Topics addressed
- What is product market fit and when to start thinking about it?
- Introduction to design thinking methodology and the importance of speaking to the market.
- Finding your targets and getting insights.
- Crafting value propositions and communication strategy.
- Taking first steps in validation
Useful material: TETRA recording
Customer Journey Mapping
Scope
Focus on the importance of having a clearly mapped customer journey early, examples of companies using customer journey and some of the tools that can be used to start analysing the customer journey
Topics addressed
- What is Customer Journey Mapping (CJM)?
- Why mapping your customer journey is important?
- How to do CJM
- Where to take CJM next
Useful material: TETRA presentation and recording
Innovation and internationalisation
Scope
Practical overview of innovation and internationalisation support facilities in Europe, overview of possibilities, pros and cons and practical hints, what to consider before entering international cooperation in the area of innovation, what it costs and what it brings to the company. How to adapt strategy to win the best chances provided by European networks, programmes and institutions.
Topics addressed
- Innovation and internationalisation and its importance for company
- Set-up of a company before entering the international cooperation
- Introduction to Enterprise Europe Network
- Support of clients’ journey to growth
- Individual advisory services
- Enhancement of innovation management
- Partnership opportunity database: thousands of high-quality cooperation profiles
- Find your clients and partners at transnational brokerage events and company missions
- Success stories
Useful material: TETRA presentation and recording
How to get faster to a successful strategy for your startup?
Topics addressed
- Market & Competition
The how’s and what’s of suitable expansion market selection. - Competitive Analysis
The ‘3P Method’ – determining IP strength and conducting preliminary competitive analysis using Patents, Products, and Publications
The ‘4P Operational Intelligence Method’- Fully understanding your competitors, (Property, Products, People, Patents) - Macro Market Analysis
What should be included in a report outlining your market
Market size and growth rate- various methods available to determine such
Mature and growth markets- determining the accepted market strategy in market segments
Organic growth, Start-ups, Mergers and Acquisition Activity- how is the market developing
Regulations – and regulatory data
Useful material: TETRA presentation
Market & Competition
Topics addressed
- Positioning of the product in the market
- Targeting the right customers
- Concept of disruptive vs sustainable innovation
- Unique Selling Point of your product
- Competition vs. Collaboration
Useful material: TETRA presentation
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