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Prob­lem and tar­get group analy­sis: How val­i­da­tion works for impact start-ups

You’ve come to the right place if …

  • you want to found an impact start­up or are already in the mid­dle of it with your team.
  • you have col­lect­ed rel­e­vant data on the prob­lems and chal­lenges of your tar­get group and stake­hold­ers.

This chap­ter helps to …

  • to test and ques­tion your assump­tions.
  • val­i­date your data col­lec­tion.
  • to pro­ceed in a struc­tured and effi­cient man­ner.

Val­i­date assump­tions for under­stand­ing the prob­lem

With the fol­low­ing four steps, you can sharp­en your prob­lem analy­sis and devel­op your solu­tions pre­cise­ly.

1. sort your inter­view data and form clus­ters

Col­lect and note down all state­ments, obser­va­tions and quotes from the inter­views on post-its or in dig­i­tal notes.

Group sim­i­lar state­ments and iden­ti­fy recur­ring themes and pat­terns. By form­ing top­ic clus­ters, you can divide insights into cat­e­gories that help you pri­or­i­tize and iden­ti­fy which needs of the tar­get group require the most action. For exam­ple, you can find out whether cer­tain chal­lenges were men­tioned par­tic­u­lar­ly often or whether there are com­mon­al­i­ties in the behav­ior of your tar­get group.

2. check your assump­tions crit­i­cal­ly

Check the assump­tions you have made about the prob­lem and the tar­get group. Do the state­ments from the inter­views match your research and your con­sid­er­a­tions?

3. update your prob­lem tree and your social change matrix

Com­plete and update your prob­lem tree and your social change matrix with the val­i­dat­ed find­ings about the prob­lem and your tar­get group from the inter­views. You now have a well-found­ed prob­lem analy­sis, e.g. for your com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

4. cre­ates a tar­get group pro­file

To cre­ate a tar­get group pro­file, you can either use per­sonas or the lean­er ver­sion of the val­ue propo­si­tion can­vas.

Per­sonas are rep­re­sen­ta­tive pro­files that help to bet­ter under­stand the tar­get group and devel­op solu­tions tai­lored to their needs. You should con­sid­er the fol­low­ing points for each per­sona:

  • Give the per­sona a (fic­ti­tious) name and an image to make it more tan­gi­ble and human.
  • Deter­mines age, gen­der, lev­el of edu­ca­tion, occu­pa­tion, place of res­i­dence and income.
  • Describes the behav­ior pat­tern, e.g: What tech­nolo­gies does she use?
  • Describes what goals the per­sona is pur­su­ing and what needs it has.
  • Note which chal­lenges and pain points are rel­e­vant for the per­sona.
  • Iden­ti­fy moti­va­tions and val­ues: What dri­ves the per­sona and what is impor­tant to them?

The val­ue propo­si­tion can­vas can also be help­ful to ensure that your solu­tion is pre­cise­ly tai­lored to the needs of your tar­get group. To do this, we first look at the side of the tar­get group (cus­tomers) — lat­er in the solu­tion design we com­plete the tool with the offer side.

The Value Proposition Canvas, Copyright: Strategyzer AG

On the left-hand side, write down the chal­lenges (pains) that your tar­get group faces and which improve­ments will help them. On the right-hand side (cir­cle), write which solu­tions your impact start­up offers to sup­port the tar­get group. In this way, you can com­pare the chal­lenges of the tar­get group with your solu­tions and check whether they actu­al­ly offer added val­ue.

Next chap­ter: Solu­tion Design

The social prob­lem is clear­ly described, you can clear­ly name the caus­es and have ana­lyzed the effects .

In addi­tion, you have devel­oped a deep under­stand­ing of the needs and chal­lenges of your tar­get group . You also have a per­sona or a rep­re­sen­ta­tive pro­file of your tar­get group. If all of this applies, you can move on to solu­tion design move on.