Accelerating Startups with a Design Mindset
Workshop Design & Facilitation, Coaching & Mentoring | The Innofounder Graduate programme for Danish Design Center
What can a little service design, design research, and strategic design lend to the startup world? It turns out, a design mindset can be the founder’s best friend…
Innovation Fund Denmark (Innovationsfonden) was set up by the Danish government to provide grants for research, knowledge-based innovation and entrepreneurship, for the benefit of growth and employment throughout Denmark. One of their flagship programmes is “Innofounder” – a set of funding streams and incubators for early stage startups.
Malte Nørgaard, CEO & Co-founder of Hexastate, talks about co-designing the right product during the Innofounder Graduate programme.
If you want to find out what our design-driven approach can do for your startup, apply until Tuesday 21.04! #dkstartup #NordicMade @Innofond pic.twitter.com/kiefgZEc9Q
— Innofounder Graduate (@InnoFounder) April 19, 2020
In 2017, the Innofounder Graduate startup incubator pivoted to become a “design-driven” program, operated by Danish Design Center. The program hosts the best of Danish graduate startups every six months on a 12-month cycle. The program has, since then, hosted more than 200 talented startup founders.
Since 2018, Context Studio has been supporting startups in the Innofounder Graduate program to apply the design-driven approach, a mindset of learning, testing, and iteration to every aspect of startup life. The programme encourages a focus on impact, and of course an emphasis on the needs of people and the planet. It means using design tools and approaches to make the invisible visible – strategies, user needs, business ecosystems, and material supply chains.
“During Innofounder Graduate at Danish Design Center, Context Studio helped over 100 startups by making a design mindset relevant, and actionable – a vital asset for any 21st century business.”
Christian Bason, CEO, Danish Design Center.
Rock, Scissors, Startup! Lots of energy and enthusiasm in the room on the 3rd and last day of the #Innofounder Kick-off Bootcamp for Cohort 5 #dkstartup #nordicmade #ifstartup @Innofond @CIIDnews @designcentret pic.twitter.com/NnzhC2njyO
— Innofounder Graduate (@InnoFounder) September 26, 2019
Each Cohort began their Innofounder Graduate program with an immersive series of facilitated design exercises during the “Kick-off Bootcamp”. These helped teams to “tear down” their business proposition, starting from the “Business Model Canvas” and to identify places where assumptions have been made, and further discovery remain necessary. And of course – we had a little fun along the way…
The kickoff bootcamp was delivered collaboratively by Context Studio and Danish Design Center, and hosted at the DDC in BLOX Copenhagen. These three-day workshops can be tough, but from the first days of the program they ensured teams had a strong direction upon which to focus their efforts.
Based on the needs of each startup, further one-day design workshops were made available. In these we explored User Research, Mapping Systems & Journeys, and Prototyping respectively, and allowed startups to work on their own problems using each set of methods.
Of course, Innofounder Graduate is a 12-month journey. Following the intense onboarding, each startup was assigned a dedicated Design Mentor familiar with their objectives, to guide their application of those skills over time. Context Studio helped recruit, lead and support these mentors in their work with startups.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Context Studio, in close collaboration with Danish Design Center, delivered all of the above experiences using hybrid and online delivery modes.