Prototype and test

Assignement for Venture Lab

Design Thinking

By Yordanka Dimitrova Ivanova

During the convergence process I´ve selected 3 different ideas from a total of 52. The selected ideas have been:

1. Portal or platform to hire students as betatesters for tech companies: create a platform through wich tech companies could hire teens to test and validate their apps or software. This kind of program offers a friendly environment and flexible schedule. The student remains working at home providing the company with his feedback. Company increases its social responsability and teens increases their expertise and experience.

2. Create a special program to help employers godfather a high school student for a week. This program has to be specially designed to enhance student´s experience in companies, and approach the working background to the student

3. Organize a young entrepreneurs party called “First Friday” 1 time per month: a party is the perfect situation to enjoy and have fun while doing networking and so many good contacts who can help students to improve their professional careers.

For this assignement “Prototype and test” I selected two of my favorite ideas to work on:

First: Platform to hire students as betatesters for tech companies.

Second: Organize a party called First Friday Party which aims to connect high school or college students with employers in an unconventional way, doing networking while having fun.

LET´S GO FOR THE PROTOTYPE!

FIRST PROTOTYPE:Create a web platform which aims to connect young proffesionals without experience with tech companies who need a low cost testers for their BETA´s:

1. First of all, I selected the following domain name for my web platform: www.findyourbetatester.com , which is avalable and I have to buy.

2. Now I have to design by sketching the main platform, the space, the corporate colors and graphic. I also have to create two user profiles: one for the student and one for the company.

3. I have to find out the way to create a really compelling user experience.

Creating a very simple and friendly interface:

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About the platform

The today´s most outstanding profiles:

The newest BETA´s to test:

Logo and link to the private BETA

www.findyourbetatester.com

www.findyourbetatester.com

Sign Up:

First name:

Last name:

Are you a betatester? Yes No

Are you a tech company? Yes No

E-mail address:

Password: *********

Create profile!

Tester´s Profile:

The more creative, the better!

1. Academic carrer2. Awards3. Interests4. Hobbies5. Languages 6. Video CV7. Presentation

- Tester can send a direct request to the company regarding the BETA he wants to test.

- Add new experiences at his profile, in respect of the honor code. - Could send to the company a recommendation request. - Tester could send feedback regarding the beta through the platform

form available.

Company´s Profile:

The more speciffic, the better!

1. Business activity2. Branch3. Offices4. Awards5. Job offers6. Testers7. BETA Presentation and link

- Company can review requests/applications for the BETA testingdepending on the testers profile.

- Can accept or not direct requests. If company accepts the requestfor tasting, it has to provide tester with code to the private beta.

- Can hire testers and make recommendations about tester´s work.

Stakeholders feedback about www.findyourbetatester.com

1. Lots of details missing on the registration process. 2. Platform applicable only to students from technological careers.3. Could testers work for different companies at the same time?4. What if tech companies create a multiple testers profile to spy the launch of

competitor´s products?5. The platform is good enough to connect testers with tech companies, but is there

some profit for the company who build the platform? Is there any business model?6. Have testers or companies to pay to use the platform?7. Loopholes are observed regarding the protection of the intellectual property8. If the user profile is public, both good and bad recommendations appear on the

Internet. 9. The platform is useful, whatever, you have to build a common form to fulfill with

testers specific skills and show on the home page only the picture profile and the specific skills.

10. Facilitate BETA testing for all users, not only for those who companies hire. It´s better for companies to receive a lot of positive and negative feedback about their BETA´s. The more feedback, the better improvements on the BETA.

11. Should warn about the age of those who want to join the platform.

SECOND PROTOTYPE:Organize a party called First Friday Party which aims to connect high school or college students with employers in an unconventional way, doing networking while having fun.

Describe the whole process of prototyping:

1. Find the better place to organize the party2. Design the logo of the event and build a fan page in Facebook. 3. Program the activities, invite special guests (inspiring people) and speakers4. Design te posters, flyers and invitations5. Share invitations in the social networks.6. Organize speakers corner, invite young students from high school or college to

talk about their skills and abilities ahead of employers. 7. Hire the entreprise which will provide the coffeebreaks for the event

Find the right place to celebrate the First Friday Party:

1. Well known place throughout the city of Alicante2. Situated on one of the busiest streets of the town3. Pub John Mulligans which hosts cultural events

We´ve sellected 10 participants or speakers (from 17 to 30 years) and the last Friday we celebrated the event we quickly prepared under the name of “CoffeeBreak” (it´s because First Friday is a registered mark, which exists, and we have had to find out a new brand name. There are some picks from the speakers and the event preparation:

We gave each participant (people directly affected by the school-to-work transition, actively seeking employment) 3 minutes to present himself. After the presentations, they all enjoyed the rest of the night doing networking.

During the event, we took profit of the situation and we interviewed some of the participants (our potential stakeholders). The feedback gathered from the interviewees was the following:

1. The event was enjoyable and we have had a lot of fun while connecting with people really interested in our profiles.

2. The space you have selected to celebrate the first event was awesome, however there was to much noise to do networking.

3. 3 minutes is not enough time to do a good presentation.4. We strongly recommend you to build a web page and try to promote the

event.5. Remove the platform from the scenario and place the participants/speakers in

the audience, to induce proximity.6. We loved the informality of the background and highly suggest you to follow

the same spirit.7. This event is so useful for the young people! Please, next time try to host more

participants.