Mapping the entrepreneur's journey to success
Conducted a comprehensive user experience study of a business incubation program, resulting in detailed user personas, a customer journey map and actionable recommendations to enhance startup support and program effectiveness
Context
As a UX researcher and designer, I undertook a project to enhance the startup incubation experience at the Incubadora Tecnológica de Natal Central (ITNC). The goal was to understand the experiences of startups within the program and identify actionable insights for improvement.
Problem statement
Despite the benefits provided by ITNC, there were concerns about the program's effectiveness in meeting the diverse needs of its startups. The goal was to map out the user experiences and perceptions of the startups to uncover pain points and areas for enhancement.
Research objectives
Understand the experiences and challenges faced by startups in the ITNC incubation program.
Identify key personas to represent the diverse user base.
Develop actionable insights to improve the overall incubation experience.
Methodology
To achieve these objectives, I employed a mixed-methods research approach:
Quantitative Surveys: Distributed to 12 startups that participated in the incubation program between 2013 and 2019.
Qualitative Interviews: Conducted with 7 startups still active in the program at the end of 2019
Collecting data
Data Collection:
Questionnaires: Used to gather data from startups that had graduated or were discontinued.
Semi-structured Interviews: Conducted with incubated startups.
The structured data collection included aspects such as:
General data: Age, gender, startup name, sector, number of partners.
Motivations: Reasons for joining the incubation program.
Importance: Rating the importance of ITNC’s support on a Likert scale.
Evaluation: Rating the services provided by ITNC.
Perceived Benefits: Assessing common benefits associated with the incubation program.
Profile Segmentation questions:
Is this your first startup?
Is this your only professional occupation?
Agreement with the statement: "I would not have started a business without ITNC."
The research revealed four distinct personas, each with unique needs and perceptions
The proactive innovator
Values infrastructure and team access.
Attributes their business start to ITNC's support.
Strongly benefits from the program.
The critical analyst
Critical of services but values brand association.
Mixed reviews yet recommends ITNC to others.
The dependent learner
Relies heavily on ITNC for business initiation.
Highly values team access and information sharing.
Positive service evaluations.
The independent achiever
Less reliant on ITNC for starting the business.
Indecisive about some program benefits.
Represents the older demographic.
How to read the personas
All personas were based on the data from qualitative and quantitative data collected
Another persona example
After the personas and with the patterns found in the data collected a journey map was designed to identify possible opportunities for improvements
Journey maps for personas
Ultimate outcome was a list that points opportunities for improvement on each step of their journey with the business incubator service
The document has the Phase of the service, Evidence (real data)
and the opportunities to improvement