The Lean Launch Challenge was an educational and exciting experience!
It has made us truly embrace the notion of "pivot."
Halfway through the challenge, we pivoted from an idea for helping retailers to an idea for helping battered women.
Our current initiative, Canvas, is premised on the following idea: For battered women, in a moment of crisis, her most immediate need is a safe space.
Canvas will create a network of hosts, and will enable social service agencies to find safe, suitable, and willing hosts to shelter a battered woman for a few days.
What We Have Learned:
We started our project wth the belief that we can help abused women find shelter in homes and hotels. However, based on what we have learned, our goals have become more modest, but more focused.
Now, we believe that average hosts - whether it be homes or hotels - can help during the first phase when she needs emergency shelter, but only trained pofessionals can help her to fully recover.
In terms of the methodology, we have learned the importance of identifying customer segments and value propositions and validating or refining these continuously through customer interviews. There is no same in abandoning an idea and focusing on something that stokes your passion!
Perhaps most importantly, your friends or experts are not the best consultants - the prosecutor, judge, and jury is your customer.
Our video is here: http://youtu.be/eJfzp5FOIRE
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