I worked for the design agency Stupid Studio to support them in the strategic process of setting up of a startup studio, a new innovation program geared at building impactful startups.

At the start of the project, the client only had a vision and the goal of designing, launching and starting to run a startup studio within a year; he still needed to engage in conversation with possible collaborators and stakeholders to strategize and bring his vision to life. In order to do this, he had to define a value proposition, the startup studio’s service offerings and its actors’ engagement; design the startup development process as well as a journey for the startup studio; produce material to communicate the vision; and conduct market validation in order to facilitate strategic decision-making.

Taking into account the client’s objectives and the group’s service design capabilities, it was possible to outline the role and assistance the group could provide. It was agreed that we would support the client in envisioning a business structure and mapping a value co-creation system, identifying the actors involved and their value-exchange. Moreover, we offered to help the client shape and communicate his vision to promote the business

How might we support our client in defining and communicating the vision for Stupid Startup Studio, so that he can successfully engage in strategic conversations with stakeholders and launch the business sustainably?

Stupid Startup Studio (SSS) is a innovation program that regularly develops and launches impactful businesses.

MISSION: SSS welcomes the public to participate in an online community-platform in order to shape the startups that the studio develops and launches.

VISION: SSS wants to democratize entrepreneurship by empowering communities to participate in shaping and funding the businesses that address their needs.

We delivered materials along the way, as can be seen in the Double Diamond methodology visualization below on the page.

The main delivery, however, happened at the end of the project collaboration, when we delivered a report containing a toolset to communicate the concept and infrastructure of Stupid Startup Studio. The report suggests tools to be used to communicate and shape the vision, mission, offerings and infrastructure of the startup studio.

I have included some material from the report in the gallery deck below.

workshop facilitation, expert interviews, literature review, market research, trend research, slide decks, actor personas, stakeholders map, business model canvas, a value system map; motivation matrix; map of the service journey; prototype for the program’s website.

Simona Mancusi, Marialuisa Dubla, Amalia Robinson

1. Service Designers need to collaborate with other experts in order to work on concepts, to incorporate legal structures and market structures.

2. Service designers facilitate strategy by:

• Making the unknown known

• Making the intangible tangible

• Process facilitation

To empower leaders through service design:

• Establish trust

• Empathize

• Identify preferred means of communication

• Evaluate what the relationship is between two stakeholders before a conversation, and what the timing in the process is

• Create tools that are clear and accessible to them – and that are iterative for them to work on

• Accept that your deliverables will take many shapes over time, or will not be used