Arcane Lights

Case Study: Arcane Lights

This startup makes LED light up items for music festivals and other art events.

Company website: https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/ArcaneLights

Charting the Team’s Design Thinking Process

Empathize

Who have you spoken to?

We found repeated posts on social media from people looking for a specific type of product that no one was making.

What are the most impactful common issues they experience?

Lack of quality products available at a level above the cheap mass produced items, but below the custom “one off” level.

What have they already tried to solve their problem?

Posting online asking people where to find what they wanted, but no one seemed to have any solutions

Define

Who is your primary audience?

Music Festival attendees and Flow Art performers.

What is the challenge you are trying to solve?

We seek to provide unique Fashion & Apparel products that make people stand out and compliment any outfits.

What is the outcome you want for your users?

To compliment people’s outfit and allow them to display their creativity. We hope to provide unique products that light up at night (in the dark) and are eye-catching.

Ideate

What solutions already exist?

In our market segment we compete with cheap, mass produced LED toys from overseas that have a bad reputation for breaking and being unreliable.

What are some radical new solutions you can think of?

We custom designed our own electronics boards to be able to fit everything in a package that is more compact than anyone else’s.

What other industries/ideas have you used as inspiration?

We look for inspiration in a variety of places, from popular DJs with signature looks, to mascots, to unique lighting displays, and combine ideas into our products.

What are your constraints?

Our main limitation is size. There is a limit to how much we can shrink the electronics. Also, we must find space to fit high capacity battery packs.

Prototype

What are core assumptions/parts of your MVP (minimum viable product)?

We needed a proof of concept that included the LED arrangement, sufficient battery life, and a functional code for demoing the capabilities of our product with a variety of colors and patterns.

How did you test your MVP quickly?

We can 3D print our MVP very rapidly for proof of concepts and to have a physical product in our hands to begin marketing.

Who did you get to test it?

We reached out to people with large social media accounts and offered them free products in exchange for feedback and for featuring them on their pages as promotional items.

Test

How did users respond to your solution?

Great, we constantly get great feedback about our products. People are constantly spreading our brand and doing word of mouth for us!

What are the strengths of your solution?

We were the first into this market segment which gives us freedom to develop our product in the direction we see fit without having to focus on fighting competition.

What are the weaknesses of your solution?

Our product could be easily replicated and copied by a competing company if they desired to.

What will you try next?

We’re currently focused on improving our product. Next on our roadmap is to integrate Bluetooth into the product and develop our own app to add more creative freedom to the user experience.