Design thinking in technology startups, an explorative study on design thinking implementations at ITU seed incubation center

Abstract

As a professional industrial designer and partner of a design consultancy company we have been always excited to work with new customers in new fields. For this reason, as a design office, providing industrial design services, we were also interested in entrepreneurship ecosystem, and after expanding our business development area here, we had opportunities to meet many technology-based entrepreneurs and develop projects with them. The demand for cooperation with entrepreneurs increased, as expected and we started to devote some of our time to the field of entrepreneurship, in order to stay up-to-date, follow the innovations and improve ourselves on how to advance better project processes and communicate them. When we started to develop more projects with entrepreneurs from different fields, we noticed over time some recurring challenges and realized that some aspects of these challenges differ from those experienced with companies. The need to identify these challenges and thus to better understand entrepreneurs and manage the project processes was clear. Taking this as a starting point, I came to the idea of conducting a case study research on this subject. It can be stated that the subject of this thesis is based on personal experiences gained in the projects developed in cooperation with the entrepreneurs. Since my professional business relations are with entrepreneurs in ITU Seed Incubation Center (ITU Seed), I decided to conduct the research with the startups here. Another important reason for this was that ITU Seed was affiliated with the university I was enrolled in and therefore was open to resource access, and therefore open to resource access, which is one of the most important issues in the research. Thus, while contributing to the literature, I wanted to be able to make this contribution through the university I graduated from. The courses where I shared my professional experiences with students in the ITU industrial design department and the corporate commitment built over the years had an impact on this also. ITU Seed is the incubation mechanism of ITU Arı Teknokent, that supports technology start-ups at any stage and contribute to their success by providing them guidance for government and privet support programs, preparation for investor meetings and presentations, and trainings mentoring program. When we look at these trainings, we see that new entrepreneurs participate in an intensive program that combines the 'Business Model Canvas and Lean Startup' method with the "Design Thinking" method, adapted to ITU Seed. Within this frame, the subject of this study is to reveal how entrepreneurs at ITU Seed Incubation Center use design thinking method. The research aims to focus on design thinking processes of startups and obtain findings about how the stages are fconstructed. To be more specific, we attempt to look at the stages of design thinking and understand how design thinking perceived, applied and implemented by the startups. Since design thinking approach is most valuable in the early stages of the design process when opportunities are being identified and new concepts are being proposed (Postma et al, 2012). Within this regard, such a problem and hypothesis can be understood by investigating how entrepreneurs iterate the early stages in the process and how they implement design thinking in these stages of the project they are developing. Here we found it necessary to emphasize the distinction at on which level design thinking positioned in organizations, since design practices can interface with organisations on different levels (Dorst, 2011). There are two different discourses discussing design thinking. Johansson and Woodilla (2010) clearly point out these two separate discourses and name them as the 'design discourse' and the 'management discourse'. Management discourse focuses on the need to improve managers' design thinking skills for better business success Johansson and (Woodilla, 2010). For a more clear explanation of management discourse, Brown (2009) presents design thinking as a human-centered approach to innovation inspired designer's way of working and thinking, which people with non-design backgrounds can use. In this study we will focus on design discourse and usage of design thinking be the entrepreneur on their projects in terms of design thinking is a catalyst for innovation and bringing new things into the world (Plattner et al, 2011). Now we would like to mention the methods and tools to be used in the research to obtain this data set. The aim of this study is to focus the design thinking processes of startups at ITU Seed and reveal how design thinking perceived, applied and implemented within the project process. Since case studies are pertinent when the research addresses an explanatory question 'How or why did something happen?' (Yin, 2014), in order to investigate this field, a qualitative case study method and explorative approach are best suited for this study. The preparation for data collection is one of the most important stages of the research. Yin (2009) mentions, training for a case study investigation actually begins with the definitions of the questions being addressed and the development of the case study design. We determined the semi-structured interview as the method to be used in the case study research, we aimed to reach more reliable information by directing the people we will meet with this way, and we started by preparing the topics and questions we would talk about. Since we had difficulties in finding suitable sampling in this study, the snowball method was used to determine the interviewees. Except for the three entrepreneurs we reached this way, we conducted interviews with two mentors we met during the study, as the mentors could provide invaluable divergent data that can be included in research and the findings could be useful in terms of understanding other stakeholders of the subject and achieving data triangulation by increasing data diversity. In summary, this study is based on semi constructed interviews conducted with 3 startups in the pre-incubation phase of ITU Seed, and 2 mentors and 1 designer, identified as other stakeholders on the practices of design thinking in startups at ITU Seed. For the analysis and interpretation of all outcomes from the study, we used affinity diagram analysis method. Data obtained from the audio recordings of the interviews used as input for the analysis and were clustered. Three prominent clusters emerged relevant to the research questions, we called 'concepts'. We named the expressions that can be placed under these concepts, which can be considered as the main heading in a sense, as sub-concepts, and we visualized the results by sorting them according to the most emphasis. We now want to present these findings. Three prominent concepts have been already mentioned as perception of design thinking, application of design thinking and implementation of design thinking. Now we would like to explain in what sense they are used in this study an the main characteristics of each startup. We evaluated the answers of startups to the questions, 'What do you understand when it comes to design thinking?' and 'What does design thinking mean to you and to your organization?', under perception of design thinking. We can list the findings that they emphasized clearly and that, in a sense, show their characteristic of perception as follows: Startup A iterative problem solving, startup B design project management and startup C mindset and methodology. For the second concept, we evaluated the answers of startups to the question, 'Why or when do you need design thinking?', under application of design thinking. We can list the findings that they emphasized clearly show their characteristic of application as follows: Startup A understanding customers/users, startup B design development and startup C exploring new opportunities. For the last one, we evaluated the answers of startups to the question, 'What are the methods and tools you use in your design thinking processes?', under implementation of design thinking. We can list the findings that they emphasized clearly show their tool for implementation as follows: Startup A participatory action research, startup B POC field test observation and startup C interview with potential customers. The findings include data on the perception, application and implementation of design thinking of startups, as well as on design thinking structures, key benefit of design thinking for their organization or key success factors. This study is significant in terms of revealing how entrepreneurs operating in ITU Seed Incubation Center use design thinking methods in their projects, collecting data that can also be used in further studies in this field, and making suggestions about how they can use this method more efficiently and effectively. The results to be obtained will not only contribute to the entrepreneurial ecosystem for entrepreneurs to use design thinking more effectively, but also to the value creation of technology-based entrepreneurs by using them, to update the contents of the entrepreneurial trainings given at ITU Seed Incubation Center.