In a rapidly changing business landscape, innovation has become a critical priority for companies, with start-ups outpacing traditional corporations in speed and agility to innovate. Despite their potential, these start-ups often face high failure rates and struggle to cross the “valley of death” due to gaps in resources and commercialization expertise. To address these challenges, new venture building models such as the venture studio and venture clienting model have emerged, aiming to systematically de-risk new ventures and support them in successfully commercializing their innovations. This thesis explored these models, seeking to bridge the gap between practical applications and academic research, with the goal of developing a new model that enhances start-up success by reducing failure risks, improving time-to-value, and optimizing cost and performance. This graduation project for Business Models Inc. explored different venture building models to identify and design the most optimal model for BMI to introduce into their portfolio of service offerings. Utilizing the Double Diamond methodology (Design Council, 2005), the project began with a research phase involving a literature review and expert interviews, focusing on venture building, corporate venturing, and factors influencing start-up success and failure. This phase led to the identification of the start-up studio model as highly beneficial for BMI, due to its potential for high financial value and control over start-ups’ strategic direction. Insights from the research highlighted three critical pillars for building strong ventures: the Human factor, the Resource factor, and the Opportunity factor. Interviews revealed three key stakeholder archetypes that are relevant for designing a new venture building model for BMI: the Driving Force, the Investor, and the Supporter. The second phase of the project, the design phase, transformed these insights into a tangible value proposition named “the Studio”. This startup studio model for BMI is designed to scout technologies, ideate and validate radical venture ideas, assemble the ideal founding teams, and provide ongoing support to ensure growth. It aims to mitigate risks associated with the three identified pillars by involving a diverse mix of individuals in the founding teams, offering initial investment, and support with studio services. The outcome includes a pitch deck to communicate the studio model’s benefits to stakeholders, a minimum viable organization structure with necessary roles and capabilities, financial forecasts, and a roadmap for implementing the studio model at BMI.

Renovations of social housing are increasing in number to meet the European Union's goals of becoming energy neutral by 2050. This is realised by using a combination of building-related energy efficiency measures (eg. insulation, mechanical ventilation), renewable energy systems (e.g. heat pumps, district heating, solar panels), and their related distrubution systems (eg. low temperature heating, smart grids).

A number of parties are involved in working of these systems, such as construction companies, housing corporations, equipment manufacturers, third party maintenance crews, and crucially the occupants of these residences themselves. Of these, the residents are an often neglected aspect in the design. Tenants are often expected to be able to operate systems with insufficient support, training and guidance. This leads to an inability to realise when the systems are not working as expected, difficulty and reluctance in conducting maintenance when an issue is found. Residents have to rely on housing corporations to arrange for a solution, which takes time and reduces quality of living and energy efficiency.

This thesis proposes ten practical principle solutions to manufactures of Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR) systems to make their designs more user-friendly. Through detailed exploration and prototyping, the thesis aims to provide feasible means to improve the interaction of residents with these energy efficient systems in their homes, thus enhancing their quality of life.

The Netherlands is confronted with a formidable challenge in the transition away from natural gas in the built environment. In this challenging landscape installation companies have an opportunity since they are often perceived as natural points of contact by residents to further aid the acceleration of the energy transition. However, installation companies currently often don’t manage to deliver positive experiences for residents.

Exploring the potential of Customer Journeys as a valuable tool to improve resident experiences, this thesis uses the customer journey as a framework to explore how installation companies can deliver improved experiences to residents. To this end, a research gap is identified in the lack of sources offering guidance on the optimal implementation of the customer journey into a company’s processes.

To start addressing this gap and provide guidance for companies, the thesis details a typical customer journey, shedding light on pain points experienced by residents during sustainable renovations with insights gained from industry literature. This overview shows that despite overall resident satisfaction, avoidable unfortunate experiences persist in the resident journey. The thesis proposes that installation companies could benefit from expanding their focus from the initial phases of the customer journey, such as orientation and choosing a solution, to later phases, such as living in a renovated home, to reduce failure costs and adopt a more holistic approach.

Examples from practice, potential solutions and insights into the challenges installation companies face emerge from analyzing semi-structured interviews with industry experts.

In conclusion the thesis presents a design concept encouraging installation companies to integrate more resident feedback into their design phase, fostering a more iterative approach. This proposal aims to start bridging the existing gap, empowering installation companies to navigate the complexities of sustainable renovations with enhanced customer-centric practices.

This thesis presents the results of the research into and the development of an international growth strategy for Revolt, a B2B provider of a product-service system for EV charging.

Revolt provides charging points for electric vehicles through a subscription model. For a fixed monthly fee, customers receive a charge point, the installation, maintenance and accompanying services.

The EV market is developing rapidly and the rate of adoption of EVs is growing. Companies feel the need to provide EV charging to their employees, customers and visitors. However, they often do not have knowledge about the charging infrastructure, nor do they have the budget to invest in charging stations.

For these problems, Revolt provides a solution. By providing an all-in-one service, from technical feasibility to maintenance and backoffice systems, the customer does not need to worry about these and they can rely on Revolt’s expertise.

The Netherlands is a forefunner in the field of EVs and the charging infrastructure. Revolt has found product-market fit here, but in order to reach scale and network effects they need to expand beyond the borders of the Dutch market. For that reason, the co-founders have asked the author of this thesis to research the European market and develop an international growth strategy for Revolt.

During the research, the author was part of Revolt’s team. This allowed the author to easily get in touch with all employees, access internal documentation and experience the company culture. By integrating in the team, the author was able to gather knowledge and validate ideas quickly.

By means of a literature review, internal and external analysis, quanitative market research and qualitative market validation the author has created a market segmentation and ranking. By using design methodologies and principles, the author has developed a market entry playbook, which serves as a manual for foreign market entry. This thesis presents the results of this research.

The literature review presents an overview of traditional market entry strategy literature, supplemented with literature on resource-based analysis, effectuation logic and psychic distance. Based on the results of this review the author has developed a process for the international market selection and entry.

Based on internal and external analysis the author developed a market data dashboard which analyses and ranks markets on quanitiative factors. The results of this analyisis led to the segmentation of potential markets in mature, high-growth and easy-to-enter markets. After a resource-based analysis of the fifteen most promising markets, the author has done a micro-level research on Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Poland. This micro-level research included e.g. charging behaviour, legislation and expected needed charge points per region.

Based on the micro-level analysis and interviews with experts in Germany and Italy, the author recommends Germany as the first market to enter, more specifically the state North Rhine-Westphalia.

To assist Revolt in the foreign market entry the author has developed a market entry playbook. This playbook covers the market research, entry and validation and provides decision-making guidelines for each phase. The author ends with general and internationalisation-specific recommendations.

Increasing energy usage and environmental concerns force us to look into green innovation. Organizations need to become more sustainable in every aspect to stay relevant. To minimize a company’s carbon footprint, IT should also be included in the sustainability strategy. Therefore, greening IT is and will continue to be a necessity, not an option (Murugesan, 2008). his project is done in collaboration with the department Technology Strategy & Operating Model (TSOM within Deloitte Consulting. Within the research phase of the project, desk research was conducted which existed of literature review and trend research, which was followed by ten expert interviews. The outcome detected an opportunity for Deloitte TSOM. By using a collaborative design process, a modified framework, implementation strategy, and adaptation AIDA model for employees were developed to incorporate sustainability in their everyday work. Additionally, an implementation roadmap was created using the AIDA model to ensure a straightforward adaption process. The new framework and implementation strategy were validated in multiple validation sessions with employees. New insights resulted in iterations on the AIDA model and a new implementation strategy of the new capabilities. Finally, based on the validation and assessment of the solution, it can be stated that the outcome adds to Deloitte TSOM’s current offerings.

Hereby, you are reading my graduation project for the Master’s program in Strategic Product Design on the TUDelft. The research has been formulated from my interest in both customer-centric design and the automotive industry.

This research started with the aim to introduce short-cycle feedback loops in pre-development departments to enable customer feedback in the early development stages to enable designers and developers to validate their product concept. The departments that will be targeted are the UI/UX pe-development departments of BMW, to be exact teams and departments that work on Natural User Interactions. The BMW Group introduced the term BMW Natural User Interaction (NUI)*, at the Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona. The NUI combines advanced voice command technology, gesture control and gaze recognition to enable more real-world interaction between the user and product.
Earlier gained knowledge and insights enabled me to see many benefits of implementing customer feedback as early as possible. To analyze the possibilities of customer feedback, literature research was combined with a company analysis. From an outsider’s perspective, it seemed that the automotive industry is a bit careful and hesitant to involve customers in development processes. Therefore, the motivation of this industry could still benefit from novel customer feedback implementations. Both the customer side and the business side, benefit from streamlined customer feedback implementation in product development. Therefore, this research aims to validate if customers would sense an ability to influence the end products of BMW.

The company analysis started from researching how departments function and interact with each other, to their development processes and finally the data gathering analysis. From the company analysis, the assumption of potential for early customer feedback was validated.
From this point onwards a search for suitable customer feedback methods was started, after considering and analysing many combinations from contemporary methods with new user interaction technologies, a 3-step method was designed to test my proposed VUI IN-Car method.

I am proud to say that promising results have been found from the 3-step test method. Interacting with a speech interaction while giving feedback on speech functions, results in a higher amount of creative ideas from participants. And adding a more realistic context to this setup results in more creative input. These results were compared to a contemporary questionnaire with the same content. The detailed steps I took will be explained in this report.

The issue of inclusion is receiving more and more attention. Additionally, mobility is undergoing a fundamental transformation toward inclusivity as a result of technological trends. This gave rise to the chance for this project, which aims to investigate how mobility may be more inclusive, draw in a larger audience, and address fresh narratives that genuinely speak to and belong to everyone.

MaaS is a concept that unifies access-based mobility services like public transportation and others onto a single, user-friendly platform. Users will no longer need to make significant investments to maintain access to transportation as a result. They are able to carry out door-to-door travel at a time that works for them. Using this integrated system, transportation companies can build a network that more effectively serves the necessary region and its users. There is still a long way to go before a fast, flexible, reliable, seamless MaaS experience can be realised. Therefore a long-term approach must be adopted by using a design roadmap. This provides the opportunity to work towards the full potential of a MaaS system by keeping the elderly involved in the whole process.

The roadmap’s greatest contribution to inclusiveness is that it, on the one hand, encourages the mobility sector to take a more active role in changing the behaviour of elderly and incorporating them in the design process of this new ecosystem. On the other hand, it shows that so much needs to be done to achieve this and that to this day we are far from inclusive when it comes to our mobility offerings.

In validation tests with experts, the roadmaps’s desirability was investigated. These evaluation interviews provided an enriched understanding on how the roadmap contributes to available knowledge and how it can be used as a strategic way to encourage change and development of the MaaS concept. These insights combined were used to formulate the final recommendations. Next to that, the insights into inclusive design were used to give Label A advice on how to implement this in their current design process, in part by putting together a workshop to establish inclusive design principles with clients.

Our food system has a huge impact on the environment and is one of the largest contributors to a global threat: climate change. The meat industry alone accounts for 15% of the greenhouse gas emissions. So, the solution would be eating less meat and dairy. But although the Dutch eat most meat replacers in Europe, the annual meat consumption hasn’t declined between 2005 and 2019. The growing number of vegans and vegetarians in The Netherlands show that it isn’t always willingness to eat less meat, but often it is habitual behaviour that is hard to disrupt. Teaching and preaching sustainability is proven to be ineffective, since consumers often filter out information that doesn’t result in short-term benefits and personal gain. Filtering out information is to reduce the mental load that consists of several struggles that consumers experience in the cooking process: finding inspiration, sticking to their budget and eating healthy and varied food. And even if consumers consider sustainability, it almost never has top priority. Therefore, a product or service that wants to help consumers choose to consume more sustainably should, primarily, focus on offering personal value and short-term benefits. In addition, sustainability has to be subtly incorporated, but never be the main attribute of the product. Consumers are already looking for help with their struggles in the cooking process, like finding inspiration Consumers are already looking for help with their struggles in the cooking process, like finding inspiration and help online and buying products that make cooking simpler and more convenient, like food boxes. But, research shows that consumers quit their food box subscription, because it is too expensive and they have no control over the size, quality and price of the vegetables. Furthermore, the recipe and herbs/sauce of the food box are considered more valuable than the vegetables. Therefore, the product that is developed in this project is a food box without vegetables. Instead, consumers receive a recipe, for inspiration and including a shopping list, and a ready-to-use sauce made of natural herbs and ingredients, which helps them with the most expensive and complicated part of a meal. All recipes are vegetarian, which nudges sustainable consumption, without compromising on price and convenience. Vegetables can be purchased in the local supermarket or local market. This increases the physical barrier compared to regular food boxes, but gives the consumer a lot of flexibility in return. The focus of the solution is to reduce the mental load for the consumer by making eating less meat easier, not more complicated. The target group are generation Y and Z, because these generations are already most sustainable, like cooking and they live online, which make it easier to target them.

The Courier, Express and Parcel market (CEP) in the Netherlands causes 85.000 tons of single use packaging to be turned into waste on a yearly basis (Thuiswinkel.org & Kennis instituut duurzaam verpakken, 2020). This combined with an annual projected growth of 10% in online orders urges society to rethink ecommerce packaging (Topsector Logistiek, 2020). This graduation project is performed for Goodcase. The startup aims to accelerate the shift towards a sustainable diet by offering sustainable foods from Dutch startups directly to the customer. The goal of this project is to find the most sustainable way of transporting perishable goods for Goodcase. BOKS is the frontrunner in a new era of packaging in ecommerce. It is part of a system where material resources are circulating within a closed loop: the circular economy. This paradigm puts emphasis on designing out waste. Switching from single use to reusables fits in this philosophy. This switch is critical to sustainably deal with the resources our planet has to offer. Switching to BOKS prevents the creation of excessive waste and therefore decreases the environmental impact of insulative ecommerce packaging.BOKS is specifically designed to assist webshops transporting perishable goods directly to their customers. These foods need to stay under 5 °C during transport. The optimal configuration of BOKS is designed using a parametric thermodynamic model.The walls of BOKS are filled with a 25 mm organic hemp layer. The insulative principle of hemp is similar to wool; small air pockets in the material prevent heat from transferring through. Due to this insulation layer the products stay cooled consistently for up to 36 Hours. Within this timeframe two delivery moments can be achieved with a success rate of 99.9%. This is what makes BOKS the most reliable way of sending cooled perishable goods!BOKS is designed for contin-use, it should flow from stakeholder to stakeholder. A fast track life cycle analysis model is used to minimize its environmental impact. It could be reused up to 100 times and therefore saves up to 37.1 kg of single use packaging, insulation and buffer materials. The folding mechanism results in a 40% volume reduction which makes BOKS efficient in logistics and more manageable to handle for its users. The CO2 emissions per trip are 68.32% less compared to a single use cardboard box. This in combination with 40% recycled materials in the outer layer, BOKS is a sustainable contender for transporting perishable goods!BOKS flows from Goodcase Packaging to the webshop, where it is subsequently packed and delivered to the logistics party. They deliver it directly to the customer, who returns it at their local supermarket or drop-off point. From there on, the BOKSES are shipped back to Goodcase Packaging in bulk. At Goodcase Packaging they are cleaned and inspected before sending them out for their next loop!BOKS is designed with all aforementioned stakeholders in mind. It was found that a reward program is crucial to incentivise each stakeholder to keep passing BOKS on. This reward program aims to actively involve both the webshop and the customer.BOKS has been tested and proven to perform up to most of the requirements. However, further development is required to make the concept of BOKS ready to be used in the real environment.

Consumers have an impact on the sustainability status of our world in many different ways. In this project the focus lies on food consumption. Dietary changes are considered a great opportunity for fighting climate change, especially through the reduction of meat consumption (Poore & Nemecek, 2018). This graduation project is performed for Goodcase. The startup aims to accelerate the shift towards a sustainable diet by offering sustainable foods directly to the customer. The goal of this project is to empower food box customers to switch their diet to a more sustainable one by offering a support system that promotes long-term behaviour change. Literature research indicated that selfefficacy and social norms play the main role when it comes to changing to more eco-friendly diets (Eker et al., 2019). Lead users reported that they had initially increased their self-efficacy to switch to a new diet by challenging themselves to perform the new behaviour for a certain time. Therefore, the design solution focused on self-experimentation through self-challenging, paired with the facilitation of social interaction with other users online. This combination is also applied in other behaviour change services, e.g. the Weight Watchers programme which helps consumers to eat healthier. Based on these key insights, the design brief defined the following design goal: To increase the self-efficacy of consumers trying to change to a more environmentally sustainable diet by facilitating self-experimentation with a food box. Following this brief, a productservice system was designed which consisted of a food box with products facilitating vegetarian cooking, a physical guide that challenged users to reduce meat consumption, and an online group for users to motivate each other. In a subsequent user test, qualitative research with eight consumers suggested that the food products triggered experimentation with vegetarian food which helped consumers to increase their selfefficacy to eat less meat. Vegetarian eating might have been positively influenced by the meat reduction challenge. However, many users found it too inconvenient to monitor themselves daily with the guidebook. Finally, a second iteration of the design concept is proposed that incorporates the key learnings from the user test. The concept, called EcoEat, combines a food box with a supportive app which allows users to monitor and improve their behaviour over the long term and in a more convenient way. This design proposal could be tested in the future. The main conclusion from this project is that providing real experiences with unfamiliar, eco-friendly food products can positively influence the consumer’s attitude towards sustainable diets. It can open them up towards trying out more food of this kind and thereby helps them to switch to a more sustainable diet. More of these opportunities for trial should be provided to consumers. Food boxes are a good medium to provide these experiences regularly. With a complementary behaviour change service the experimentation with a sustainable diet can be upheld if the users are guided in a way that is convenient for them.