Concepting Flik – Designing a product for venture funding

Creating a product from concept (to completion)

Flik started as an interface design project and via the Concepting process became the genesis of Telstra’s BigBlog.

• Before Concepting: “Software that aims to enable broadband ISPs to offer superior video programming”
• During Concepting: Flik
• After Concepting:     Telstra BigBlog

Finding the opportunity gap

Flik was a project of the now defunct Telstra Broadband Fund (an Australian venture fund for multimedia development). Flik was a nameless project at the start, and it was touted as a broadband browser for sharing large video files. This was 2004. File-sharing (peer-to-peer) was a relatively new market space, Kazaa was just about to get completely ‘legalled’ for copyright infringement, and the consumerisation of blogging was still to come (Google purchased Blogger in 2003).

Concepting is a process to help people visualise a business strategy, and the first phase is Trend Research. This is often neglected because people are already sold on their original idea, or they have watched too many Nike commercials. But wonderful things are discovered in research. I would argue 80% of a medical lab’s work is research, and in this research phase they find the discoveries. Interestingly, the last 20% of their work is all about revenue.

It was during the earlier phases of Trend Research that a gap in the market was hit upon; a family–orientated P2P application for sharing videos, images, and stories. This supplanted the original plan to create an app that would distribute large video files.

Quickwin = build exaggerated models / prototypes / designs

In true agile fashion, the real thinking commenced with paper prototyping, which I find to be the ultimate method to envision the future state of a  new product. The paper prototyping phase is the key to creating a compelling concept. In my view, to get the most out of prototyping, it helps to forget about the brief (until the PM looks over your shoulder anyway). Keep it at the back of your mind, your ideation can always be ‘stripped down’ in the next phase to fulfill a brief.

When prototyping, my approach is to capture ‘tens’ of ideas for each screen (home page / dashboard / desktop app). The result is an exaggerated model of the product. This is an opportunity to come up with ideas that are ‘not in scope’, and in a way, it’s your wish list.

Here is my first prototype sketch for Flik.

If you look at the above prototype example closely, you will notice there are numerous items (ideas) in the ‘interface’. Many of these items are not user interface devices or visual ‘niceties’ – they are Business Objects that highlight links to revenue models and business processes.

Concepting is not about wireframing the user experience and the GUI, it is the ‘productisation’ of your concept by embedding your business strategy into the screen.

Some elements on the prototyped page will be more important to you: I call these Idea Nodes.

Term: Idea Nodes are the kernel of a group of ideas, something that you can ‘break out’ into a new paper prototyping session. We can build more ideas around this single Idea Node.

Using my example, an Idea Node would be the ‘Marketplace’ or the ‘Create Tab’. The Marketplace is also a perfect example of a Business Object, it can be linked to revenue models, such as a section dedicated to selling published Flik content.

Now think; are you going to be working on this product for a few years?

If you answered ‘yes’ to the above…read on…if you answered ‘no’…read on.

You may never have the chance to repeat the prototyping phase again for this product. This is especially true if you are successful in launching your product / business, and your partners (the holders of the cheque book) have their way. They are not interested in product innovation. They want you to keep doing what ever it was you did to create Version 1.0; only better, bigger, and tied to more sales.

Therefore, concept hard in the early days – create lots of paper prototypes, and allow yourself that creative freedom and flexibility to develop your ideas. And then, when you wireframe, you can start to iterate down to the core concept to fulfill the brief or hopefully your new brief.

However, before you iterate too deep – create a visual roadmap of all your Idea Nodes based on your exaggerated model.

Visualise your roadmap early

Create a roadmap by transforming your Idea Nodes into ‘potential’ Product Nodes, and depict each Node as an item on a timeline of how the business / product will look over the next three years. This way if one of your original Idea Nodes is removed or backlogged during any stage of business development your ideas will still have representation.

The outcome of Concepting is to create two things: a current view of the opportunity; and a vision of the future state of your business model. Therefore, any ‘leftovers’ of the prototyping phase are useful in building the roadmap to support your future revenue modeling.

Term: Product Nodes are key Idea Node, which could take on a life of their own. I don’t necessarily mean ideas that are big enough to be spin-off ventures, it can be more subtle, such as product extensions and feature enhancements that augment the original v1.0 app; etc. However, there are no rules, if you desire a spin-off venture in your roadmap – do it. Just consider that most business people take these ‘ideas’ very seriously, so if a spin-off venture is unrealistic you don’t want to stall an investor meeting defending the unreal.

I will post another day about Visual Roadmapping using another project (SupporterZone) to highlight the making of a visual roadmap (versus technical roadmaps, which are lists of what features will be postponed after a specified date).

The ‘Ah-Ha Moment’

Fact: it was not until late into the Concepting process that the ‘Ah-Ha Moment’ was revealed. The investors were excited by one key Idea Node in the overall concept: Flik’s Channel Pages, which was a diary feature, or commonly referred to as Blogs.

The Telstra BigBlog was born, a blogging tool that is still operating today (2009).

The best part of Concepting is if you can pinpoint the ‘Ah-Ha Moment’. The single point where clients / partners / investors get it!

Download

For a document detailing aspects of the Flik application concept and design process, download the Concepting Flik PDF.

Concepting Summary:

• Title: Flik.
• Purpose: Create an online product for venture funding.
• Result: The Flik project resulted in the development of the Telstra BigBlog (in 2004).
• Moral: Be prepared to discard many ideas, even to distill down to one, to make the concept more compelling.

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