product overview

Earnist
Empowering Teen Entrepreneurs

October 2017 – December 2017 (~ 2 months)
Team of 5, my role: service designer

THE PROBLEM SPACE

Lack of financial literacy in youth

Research has shown that financial literacy, especially among America’s youth, is dangerously poor. To address this problem, we propose to explore and collaboratively design, with PNC, a new type of data-driven banking services for families — services where teens can learn and practice financial basics by playing with real money.


USER RESEARCH

The two ends of the spectrum: business-oriented teens and average teens

During our initial user research (view research report), we discovered there is a group of teens who are proactive at seeking and practicing financial knowledge and many have started their own business. We call them business-oriented teens.

Then the questions are: What makes a business-oriented teen? How can help them grow? Can we transform average teens into business-oriented teens?

interview

Digital payments and social networks were reshaping how a teen could start and grow a project idea.

We modeled stakeholders and grouped them by their roles with respect to teen entrepreneurs.


by modeling comprehensively, we elicited feedback about a specific set of interesting value flows related to how digital payments and social networks were reshaping how an entrepreneurial teen could start and grow a business or project idea.

Stakeholder Model

NEED-FINDING

Brainstorm 30 concepts

As a group, we brainstormed about 30 concepts. After grouping the concepts, we identified 8 interests area: community creation, feedback/incentive, job search, mentorship/workshop, machine/bot, payment, fund/actionable, and business management.

30 concepts

Brainstorm 30 concepts as a group.

Speed-dating with teens and parents to validate needs

We selected top 10 ideas and visualized them with storyboards.

teen bussiness account
teen bussiness account no.2
micro-funding
micro-funding2
micro-funding3
managing club funding
managing club funding2

REFRAME THE PROBLEM

What if entrepreneurship is for everyone

While speed-dating with users, many people are scared by the word “entrepreneurship”:

“Of course I’d like to have my own business, but I would never actually start one because it requires too much commitment. Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone.” But what if entrepreneurship is for everyone?


reframe the problem

From both our initial interview and secondary research, most teens in the US are making money in some way: do part-time jobs, sell hand-made crafts, run a farmer's market stand… By expanding our target user to any teens who are interested in making money, we want to help more teens see themselves as entrepreneurs and develop the mindset for operating a business.


Build services for both experienced teens and newcomers

personas

ITERATIONS

stakeholder modeling
stakeholder modeling
value flow
wireframs

DESIGN DECISIONS

Key features for Earnist

product breif

Customer journey

customer journey
my stats

My Stats

Manage the business

  • View up-to-date transactions.
  • Track and manage business spendings.

Explore

Grow the business

  • Search for community job opportunities.
  • Browse trending projects and personalized recommendations.
  • Discover their ranking in the neighborhood.
dashboard
starter

Inspire

Get ideas from peers

  • Teens who are interested in making more money but isn't sure how to get started can get ideas by searching for the area of interest and learn from peers in the community.

Value exchange

value exchange