Before you dive into developing a new idea, you need to set a baseline. In this first module, you’ll evaluate your current context and competitive landscape. From there, you’ll produce a high-level sketch of your idea which, along with your baseline, will serve as the foundation you build on throughout this course.

What you'll learn

• Learn how to use the Sailboat SWOT analysis to understand your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
• Understand how to use tools for competitor analysis and do some yourself
• Sketch and articulate your idea to set the starting line for the rest of the course

Through various research methods you’ll learn to put yourself in their shoes, developing empathy and greater understanding of what they value. This insight will guide you as you develop a solution that solves real problems for real people.

What you'll learn

• Learn and apply primary and secondary research techniques to gain a deeper understanding of your customer
• Get to the heart of what’s valuable for your customers by understanding their Pains, Gains, and Jobs-To-Be-Done
• Take the insight from the preceding activities to build personas that will inform the next steps of developing your idea

In this module, we’ll show you how to understand the space you’re operating in, who’s a part of it, and the size of your opportunity. The combination of your market analysis and customer understanding will guide you as you design a value proposition that serves your customers and provides value to your business.

What you'll learn

• How to identify your Total Addressable Market, Served Available Market, and Target Market
• Build a business model and value proposition to demonstrate how your idea will generate value
• Run through another round of competitor analysis, homing in on the jobs those competitors are solving for their customers