Case: Cosmetics
Helping a European cosmetics startup launch its pilot product
Facing a similar challenge?
The Challenge
Aligning business and technical visions to realise the core user experience
A disconnect lay between the business and technical teams' visions for the product, where the former envisioned building a data collection tool for monetisation via advertising, while the latter viewed the mission as creating a social platform for high-intensity interaction around cosmetics purchase and use. The challenge was about helping the two functions reach synthesis and create a user experience that leveraged advantageous qualities of both, whilst enabling behavioral outcomes that supported key user needs.
Approach
The majority of the project focused on building and iterating how women on-the-go and within retail contexts would interact with the app. We began by refining the first-time user experience and the creation of connections between users. Our activities included user profiling and segmentation, behavioral prototyping, and assumption and relevance testing with target users to validate the founders’ value hypotheses. We aimed to refine the product's problem-solving capabilities for early adopters and the early majority, identifying beachhead users for a differentiated offering in a crowded industry dominated by massive global, deep-pocketed incumbents.
Outcomes
The founding team developed a core product design that integrated the best elements of the technical and business product visions, and validated it with potential users. This led to the acceptance of the team into a world-class acceleration program run by a global beauty multinational. Following this, the startup was able to launch their first product in multiple European markets.
