If youre a bootstrapped startup, turn to user-centered design to thrive during adversity
Summary
Up until 2022, the capital markets were such that any team with a good idea and reasonable business plan could get funding to launch a new product. Now that investors are more demanding and writing smaller checks, UCD can be the difference between your business launching or never making it off the drawing board. We therefore took a lean approach that eschewed expensive software development and marketing, and instead used UCD for everything from the company name and logo to our first product. Our original business plan at Inflectra was to launch a software test management tool similar to other more expensive, complex and harder-to-use products already on the market. This product would ultimately become what is now known as “SpiraTest.” However, before launching the business, we employed UCD principles to ask lots of questions to colleagues, potential customers and users.