This week I started with 3-4 key directions derived from my insights and research.

First sketch working through rough ideas

The first one was a peer-to-peer shipping service, where a immigrants living in Copenhagen could use a database of travel itineraries to make product requests to travelers. The second was a rotating popup aisle in the supermarket, curated by local “ethnic restaurants” and immigrant groups, based on exploring and documenting reactions. The third direction was care packages curated by immigrants and restaurant owners living in Copenhagen that are then sent out to immigrants living in areas of Denmark with limited access to food ingredients from their ethnic group.

I timeboxed 30 minutes to spend flushing each direction out, mapping and creating scenarios for each one. This exercise was really to test my own interest in exploring each direction.

This week we had our second session with external reviewers. I met with Chris from Normally and Tobias from IDEO. In preparation for the meeting, I evaluated each direction, and narrowed it down to one focused on domestic care packages in Copenhagen. I worked on visualizing and mapping out the idea, thinking about the value propositions, market positioning and initial scenarios.

Initial sketch from Chris combining multiple concepts

Both meetings went well. Chris pushed me to switch a bit from a demand-driven business model to think of ways I can use supply to trigger demand. Funnily enough, he brought back in two concepts of peer-to-peer shipping and luggages and interventions in the supermarkets, and we worked together to tie them into my current concept. He encouraged me to explore POS opportunities inside shops, and the idea of mapping out Copenhagen and even Denmark in regards to ethnic groups and restaurants to understand where demand is in terms of geography and how to further trigger it.

Tobias is a Dane living in San Francisco and always brings licorice and aquavit with him back from Denmark. He brings it to share it with others that otherwise might never try it. Tobias encouraged me to look into personal-feeling user interfaces and how to visualize trust in terms of UI. He spoke about the power of a crowd-powered element and the feeling of "you want to know you can get the things you crave." He also encouraged me to think about payments as a potential area for differentiation.

I also prepared some initial tools for user testing, which I’ve scheduled for week 43.

At the end of the week I worked on an initial service blueprint, which helped me go a bit deeper into the concept.