Joan Lundell

Scrappy Startups is a conceptual website service that helps aspiring entrepreneurs through the startup process and successful business owners become stewards in the local economy. The software provides matches to key resources in the area based on relevancy to the user’s needs, much like a dating site matches partners. The site creates a reinforcing loop as participants move through the startup process, catching data as users both seek and provide information. Scrappy Startups was conceptualized by an interdisciplinary team of students from the fields of design, anthropology and science. 

STRATEGY

We began the project by conducting interviews with entrepreneurs in different stages of startup. Asking questions such as: "What do you wish you would have had while getting off the ground," "Where do you spent most of your energy" and "What services online or off helped you in the process."  From the interview findings we generated user personas and mapped out the resources people had available to them versus the resources they needed, creating a competitive landscape map to evaluate where resource gaps exist.  

OUTCOME

Based on the research we collected from the target audience, Scrappy Startups evolved into a well-structured service.  We demonstrated how the concept may be implemented in a short narrative video in which “Heidi,” the persona, used the site to get her business off the ground and returns to help others realize their dreams to own a business.  The video was shared with potential users and business experts, serving as visual documentation of the value of our concept.