- At the beginning of this course,
I gave an overview of our work with New Matter,
the 3D printing startup.
I'm going to return to that work now
to illustrate our fourth principle,
design the impact, not the product
and how it supported the company's launch
and subsequent growth.
As I mentioned earlier, playing to win
and the innovation it entails are a forward-looking effort.
Analyzing our past is of limited value
when working toward a discontinuous future.
Instead, we need to imagine our future state
and then work backwards to chart our course.
Once we're aligned around this vision and the path to it,
we can focus on the next major milestone
that we need to accelerate through and beyond.
In the case of New Matter,
this next milestone was their series A financing.
The scope of our first round of work
included collaborating on their strategy, brand,
hardware design and digital ecosystem
and then designing, filming, and launching
their crowdfunding campaign.
But the definition of success of our work,
the required impact,
was the company progressing to the close
of a significant series A financing.
The financing hinged on the campaign triggering
and demonstrating New Matter's traction in the market.
If we failed at this,
the company would very quickly grind to a halt.
Understanding the necessary impact of our work,
how we would measure our progress along the way
and exactly how the outcomes fit into both the company's
immediate existential needs and long-term trajectory
was critical for focusing our efforts.
While the crowdfunding campaign needed
to accurately present the product
and marketplace we would launch,
it was also clear that there are many aspects
of the product implementation
that didn't need to be completed
or even shouldn't be completed
in order to get to our desired impact.
We resolved the industrial design
and preliminary mechanical engineering of the new printer
up to the point where we knew
that the remaining work to take it into production
wouldn't significantly alter its function or appearance.
Then we produced an appearance model
that would be indistinguishable
from a production unit in the campaign.
We architected and wireframed the whole content marketplace,
then paused our work on all but the portions of it
that we knew would factor into the storyline
of our campaign.
We completed the UI and visual design
of this subset of hero flows through the user experience.
In short, we designed the signature moments
of the New Matter user experience
that would get us to the impact we needed
and pause the rest.
The video includes some thick smoke and shiny mirrors.
We relied on the appearance model of the printer
and composited screens and animations
onto blank phones, tablets, and computers
to simulate the digital ecosystem and its features.
The launch enabled New Matter to presell their product,
but more importantly it opened up a dialogue
with the company's key customers
and generated valuable feedback
that could be incorporated into the product
and marketplace as we move forward.
By focusing our work down to exactly
what was necessary and sufficient,
we were able to hit our immediate crowdfunding
and traction goals and advance the company to its series A.
The campaign jump started the New Matter community
with an installed user base
of over 3500 highly-engaged printer owners.
Not long thereafter, New Matter raised 6.5 million
in a series A from top tier Silicon Valley VCs.
Rather than placing all of of our attention
on progressing the product as far as possible,
we remained focused on what was necessary and sufficient
for the company's early trajectory.
We invested the time we saved
toward creating the go to market strategy,
building the brand foundation,
ramping up the company's internal design capabilities,
finding product market fit and activating their community.
We looked beyond the product to design the impact,
which is the essence of our fourth principle.