Opportunity Framing

Goal: Determine if a service that helps student find study group would be desired or feasible

Tools and Actions:

Value Flow Model: Identify potential stakeholders for our service
PESTLE and SET/POG: Identify external factors that might impact our product
Literature Review: Confirm that we have identified a problem and a solution
Competitor Analysis: Determine if competitors have not developed similar product already

Customer Insights

Goal: Determine who our key stakeholders are, their needs, their pain points, and if they would even be interested in our service

Tools and Actions:

Semi structured Interview: Identified potential stakeholders for our service by conducing 11 interviews
Affinity Diagram: Synthesized interview data, drew insights, determined design features of platform
Shifted Study Buddy from a platform that schedules and hosts study group meetings to a platform that allows students to pair up with other students
Determined how to match students and ideal study partners
Prioritized fast and flexible matching service within design

Goal: Develop and flesh out our MVP, determine logistics of our service, prepare our pitch to potential investors

Tools and Actions:

Personas: Helped understand the goals and needs of those who might use our service as we design our prototype
Lean Business Canvas: Helped us focus on the most essential features of our business and decide which features to include in our MVP.
MVP Prototype: Modeled and demonstrated the core features of our service to future stakeholders
- Consisted of google forms and a spread sheet to show how a profile was built, how matching worked, and how feedback was received
Pitch Presentation: Developed an easy to understand presentation that explains why our service solves an important problem
Storytelling Techniques: Helped create a compelling narrative and explain how our service functions

Goal: Improve our MVP and pitch based upon feedback and create a video that explained how our prototype worked.

Actions Taken and Changes Made:

Adjusted pitch narrative away from the loneliness and low student motivation experienced during quarantine
Appealed towards the university's interests and focused upon student success and drop out rate
Improved design of presentation to be more readable and appealing
User Research: Interviewed more University Academic Success Center staff and incorporated financial considerations into our product and pitch
Explainer Video: Created a short video that explains how our service works and was beneficial to investors and users

Goal: Refine MVP pitch and explainer video for investor showcase

Actions and Tools:

Further refined our MVP pitch and explainer video
Narrowed the scope of our MVP
Determined how we would expand our product and how investors could contribute to success
Further highlighted how Study Buddy would benefit the University Student Academic Success Center