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Welcome to the 2021 Biomimicry Launchpad! Email us if you have any questions.
This week we will create a customer persona, a fictional character that has been constructed based on your real, potential customers. Using this persona, we will explore how you can reach them and deliver your product to them. During this lesson, remember that you do not have to do everything on your own. Who are the experts, services, or companies out there that can help you accomplish your goals?
Customer Persona
Customer Persona
By this point you probably have a pretty good idea about your ideal customer. Now, let's create a Customer Persona. Personas represent the needs of a whole range of real users. They help you to clearly articulate who your customer is and to keep them in mind as you make decisions about what solution will fit their needs and how you can reach them. We recommend that you use Xtensio to create your persona.
Personas should include:
Personas should include:
Name (make up a name, first and last)
Photo (find a pic on the Internet)
Quote (in the voice of the customer what insight have you learned about their motivations, challenges, or problem)
Relevant background demographics
Narrative description including frustrations, pain points, motivations, goals, current approaches, desires, and interactions with others within the context of the problem.
Brands and companies that influence their decisions.
Preferred outreach channels.
Example customer persona, for a vertical farming startup.
Where do your customers hang out?
Where do your customers hang out?
As you move forward with your startup, your goal is to identify where your customers hang-out. This means you need to identify the physical or digital space where they spend their time. As you are just starting your company, "hanging out" with your customers will give you great insights into how to develop your solution. As you start to make sales, you will find the most success by having established credibility with the customers you have been hanging out with. They trust you because you understand their background, context, and needs. At the same time, you are using your resources efficiently because you know how to best communicate with them!
Customer Personas.mp4Now that you know where your customer hangs out, you can come up with a plan to reach them. More importantly, you should come up with a plan to identify an early-adopter that will work with you to develop your solution. For those selling their products to businesses or governments, who in these organizations would be excited to work with an unproven (but exciting!) new solution? For those selling products directly to customers, can you find someone that is incredibly excited to test out a new technology? Your mission, craft a plan to identify and onboard an early-adopter!
Early Adopters.mp4Biomimicry in Practice
Biomimicry in Practice
In biological terms, mutualism refers to an association between two different species in which each has a net benefit.
Explore the AskNature Biological Strategy pages below, to learn about some of the mutually beneficial relationships found in nature. Keep these relationships in mind, as you proceed to the next section, Understanding your supporters.
Understanding your supporters
Understanding your supporters
Let's switch gears to talk about people and organizations that will support you to help make and deliver your product. These supporters can be broken down into three main categories:
Suppliers - Where do you receive your inputs from? Is someone else manufacturing your product for you? This commonly is a vendor to your startup, where you pay them in return for goods.
Distributors - How do your customers receive your solution? This can be anything from the postal service, to an encrypted platform to send proprietary designs and plans. You can also think about distributors in terms of marketing distribution. Facebook and Google are two of the biggest content distributors.
Partners - Who helps you to develop your solution, and reach your customers? Typically you do not pay to enter into a partnership, but instead each organization provides mutual benefit to the other. A great example is how the Biomimicry Institute partners with media outlets to provide them expertise in biomimicry in exchange for content. Partnerships can take a lot of time to cultivate, but the end result can help you take your startup to a new level.
So why is it important to understand your supporters? Well, just like you need to understand your customers, it is important for you to understand what motivates your supporters. For many suppliers and distributors it is as simple as they want to provide a quality service/product for a price. However these groups oftentimes will give a discount to startups because they value your loyalty as you continue to grow.
Most first time entrepreneurs think that they need to do everything themselves. Challenge yourself to think about how you might work with supporters to accomplish your goals.
Reconnect
Reconnect
In previous weeks we've encouraged you to examine physical objects from nature, and to explore your biome. This week, how about exploring the natural world without leaving home? Natural Habitat Adventures enlisted their 150 guides from around the globe to inspire you with fascinating wildlife insights, tutorials, conservation updates, and more. Check out their Daily Dose of Nature series here.
Assignments: Week 8
Assignments: Week 8
Read the Week 8 content and complete the assignments before your 1-on-1 coaching call.
With your team, create a customer persona. If you have multiple customers, create multiple personas. Be creative - your job is to describe a person, and people are unique and complex! We recommend using Xtensio to make your person.
Identify some possible supporters, such as manufacturers or partners, and reach out to at least one supporter! If you are not yet ready to form a relationship with them, you can practice skills from The Mom Test to learn about how they engage and work with startups like you.
Come up with a plan on how to identify and work with an early adopter. The plan should include your ask (usually space and expertise to test the solution), and the benefit that your early adopter will gain by working with you now. Talk to some potential customers (either new people or people you have talked to in the past) to see if they would be interested in working with you!
Assignments: Draft Deliverables
Assignments: Draft Deliverables
All teams will be required to complete these deliverables, and upload to your Google Drive by the stated deadlines.
DRAFT VERSIONS: Due on November 19, 2021.
FINAL DELIVERABLES: Due on December 8, 2021.
Due November 19th - Executive Summary - Draft version
An Executive Summary is a document that you would share with a potential investor or media representative, and is a document that we will use to help promote your work. It is a snapshot into your project, and communicates important information such as the problem you are solving, your solution, and biomimicry!
Please use this template. Make a copy by going to "File > Make a Copy". Do not edit the headings or rearrange the content. Just enter in your information.
Due November 19th - Elevator Pitch - Draft version
1-minute video about your team and innovation. This is not an informational presentation. Instead, a pitch is a persuasive presentation that explains how your solution provides value to the problem you are solving. Watch the videos this week, for tips on what to include in your pitch.
Due November 19th - Pitch Deck - Draft version
Each team will create a short presentation slide deck that highlights your problem and biomimicry solution, the unique value you offer, your team, and your entrepreneurial or design journey to this point.
Upload your draft pitch deck (Google Slides, Powerpoint, or PDF format) to your team's Google Drive folder by the due date. Your coach and Launchpad staff will review and provide feedback.
Your final deliverables will be presented on a Virtual Showcase page of the Biomimicry Institute website, to be shared with the biomimicry network and the public!
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