Sport Innovation/WorldGlass Customer Discovery Wiki

World Glass Golf Application

World Glass Sports

This is a sporting company that specializes in providing easy-to-use applications for a variety of different sports and activities. By utilizing the Google Glasses technology, we will enable our customers to have a personal trainer, caddy, coach, motivator, and more whenever they are needed! The first impression we make on the market will be with the release of our “World Glass Golf” application

World Glass Golf

Our new and innovative golfing application will be “one of a kind” and will make a splash within the golfing community by highlighting the strengths of current technology and products, in addition to adding our very own tools and tactics. The application will be provided to consumers through Google Glasses technology. The main elements of the application are: Player Profile, Golfing Social, Measure My Clubs, Course Finder, Range Mode, and Settings.

Player Profile

This part of the application will serve as the golfer’s notebook. This will be a place where you will be able to find the golfer’s current handicap, past scores, high scores, ID picture, shot recordings, and career golfing highlights. The profile will be viewable to other World Glass Golf users within the Golfing Social part of the application. Essentially, the player profile will serve the same way that a Facebook profile does, except it will be mainly golfing associated. Friends will be able to see the profile and see what your most recent scores were and where you plan on playing next.

Golfing Social

The social media aspect of the application will be what keeps people engaged within the golfing community. The sport is already a very social atmosphere. It is commonly used as a relaxing get away on a day off, a place to take potential clients, and a place for families to come together. Golfing Social will primarily connect golfers within similar communities, keep everybody connected within the sport, and bring golfers with similar talents together for a round. It is quite common for somebody to go out and play a round alone or be paired up with another twosome. Instead of waiting to be paired up with a random group, why not at least have the opportunity to play with somebody who has a similar skill level or similar interests? Golfing Social will ensure that people are having an even better interaction amongst each other, and it will make it easier for golfers from all walks of life to connect.

Measure My Clubs

This part of the application will be used and completed before the round of golf begins. It is designed to serve as your caddy throughout each round. However, the time needs to be taken at the driving range to find all the lengths of all your clubs. The golfer will start with their driver and continue to work their way through the woods and set of irons. For each club the player will take twenty shots. The application will measure the lengths and take an average distance for each club. As soon as the round begins, you will be able to utilize your digital caddy and assure yourself of hitting the right club for a crucial mid-round shot.

Course Finder

The first use of the Course Finder will be a simple search engine that customers will be able to take advantage of. They will be able to see all golf clubs around their area along with what tee times they have available, and even how many World Glass Golf users are playing there. The application will also have player testimonials for many of different courses. The second use will be to give each course the opportunity to manage their own profile within the application. Here they can provide different promotions, events, and tournaments that they will be hosting.

Range Mode

Range Mode will primarily be used as a training mechanism. What makes our training techniques different is that we make it more interactive and fun to improve your game. Through the glasses, the application will be able to project different golfing situations through the eyes of the golfer. For example, users might be able to play the Par 5 Hole 16 at Augusta as a way of training. Additionally, they will be able to take the same shot over and over until they feel ready to proceed with the next set up. Range Mode will also go hand in hand with Measure My Clubs.

Settings

This part of the application is for general maintenance purposes only. There will be application updates found here, along with minor changes that can be made to help personalize the application for customers.

Customer Development Plan

Getting out into the market and discussing the innovative application with possible consumers is the best way of establishing a customer development plan. The customer development plan for World Glass Golf will be a four-week long process. Each week strides towards completing our goal will be taken and we will begin to gain valuable information. By then digesting the new insights fully and making changes where appropriate, we will be in much better line for success.

Customer Development Goals

This part of the application development is crucial while intending to be successful. Engaging with possible consumers can tell you a lot about your product. The feedback given will highlight some of the positive areas of the application and will also expose some of the weaker areas. In addition, there will be some aspects that need to be added in order to be sure the application is well rounded. Before setting out into the market there were a number of goals set that will be used as guidelines and benchmarks while gaining first hand information. The goals are as follows:

• Interact in full conversation with a range of different golfers. Differences we will look for will include age, gender, skill level, and technology level. By accounting for these differences we will be able to cover our entire target market.

• Interview anywhere from Twenty to Thirty golfers from different golf stores and different golf courses.

• Visit anywhere from Two to Five different golf courses. This is important so that we are engaging with different circles of golfing communities. Also, we hope to visit low cost courses and at least one high scale or private golf club.

• Visit One or Two pro shops that are located on the Gold Coast. Not only will this opportunity be utilized to talk to golfers in general, but we will also aim to talk to managers of the pro shop. Here our conversations will be a little bit different. Not only will we have the conversation regarding just the product, but also their opinion as far as possible rental agreements that they would be comfortable with. The point of this is to see just how much emphasis we should put on making Google Glasses available through rentals.

• Lastly, it is important to make at least one blog post on a golfing themed thread. Blogs are purely opinionated pieces of writing and people will not be shy to express their honest opinion regarding our product. The aim will be to make a blog post designed to orchestrate further conversation by other users.

Week One

The first week of our customer development phase was a good start towards achieving our goals. In total, we interviewed six golfers and visited a total of one golf course. The course that was visited was Palm Meadows Golf Club located in Robina on the Gold Coast. The golf course is mid range as far as appearance, exclusivity, and pricing goes. It ended up being a blessing in disguise due to the fact that it had a very diverse crowd of golfers. Table One shows the breakdown of the different golfers interviewed and their answers for the different topics of conversation. The results for the table were then gathered and put into percentage totals. Some initial trends were started after the first week. The most assuring piece of information was the fact that 83.3% of the people interviewed said they would use the application, while the remaining 16.6% said maybe. Also, four out of the six interviewees said that sponsorship or representation would really help to sell the product. Lastly, out of the six people interviewed, most people were most interested in Golfing Social, Training Mode, and Caddy Mode. Each response was mention 33.3% of the time. As we look towards week two, the goal is to get a larger group of interviews at a different golf course. It would also be a plus to possibly interview more female golfers.

Week Two

Even larger strides were taken in Week Two of the Customer Development Phase. There were a total of thirteen different golfers interviewed, and the interviews took place over two different golf courses. The two courses visited this particular week were Palmer Gold Coast and Gold Coast Country Club. The Palmer Gold Coast, designed by the famous golfer Arnold Palmer, was a pretty upscale course. The green fees are a bit higher and just based on the availability of tee times, it must be a tough spot to get a reservation. The Gold Coast Country Club was another mid-range course that welcomes people from all walks of life within the general public. The results of the interview can be seen in Table Two. Comparing and combining these results with the results from Week One, there are some major trends that have become quite visible. First off, it is evident for the second week in a row that there are fewer females on the golf course than males. However, there has been quite some interest in the Golfing Social aspect of the app. Initially we expected that females would show most interest, but it turns out that both sexes are interested in that area. Within the thirteen interviews conducted in Week Two, 76.9% of the interviewees expressed a lot of interest in the Golfing Social idea. Two other numbers that stood out were the amount of people saying they would just rent the product before purchasing it (69.2%). Table Two also shows that more than two thirds of the interviewees thought some type of sponsorship was important in enhancing the reputation of the application.

Week Three

Week Three was our last week designated for making people to people connections. Again, this is a very important part of the customer discovery process. You can get a much more genuine response with face-to-face interactions. Although it is a short amount of time, it still enabled me to create a small but impactful relationship with each person spoken to. This week there were a total of seven golfers spoken to, one golf course visited, and one pro golf shop visited. Table Three shows a break down of the results that were found. Unfortunately, there was another surplus of male interviewees and just one female interviewed. Also, there were some of the same trends showing up, as they were in Week One and Week Two. The level of technology use was high again, showing that 71.4% of the people interviewed use a high level of technology. The “I wish” hypotheticals also showed some similar topics. Golfing Social and Shot Recorder were two of the main topics that people were interested in. 57.1 % of the interviewees in Week Three were interested in Golfing Social, while a whopping 71.4% of the people also liked the idea of a Shot Recorder. There was also one golfing pro shop visited this week, named The House of Golf. This is a chain company, which has locations throughout Australia. This particular location was in Bundall, on the Gold Coast. There I was able to speak to a manager about some possible rental ideas. He is located on Table Three as the 32 year old Marty. He liked the overall idea of the application, but was not willing to consider the idea of renting some Google Glasses. I explained how there would be an opportunity for both parties to make money and he accepted that, but explained that it was still too early to say how interested he would be in forming a contract. Like most people talked to, it is hard to form a firm opinion when the product isn’t even out yet.

Week Four-Gathering and Categorizing Information

This last week of the Customer Development Phase was designed to harness and gather all valuable information that was presented to us. We combined the results from all three weeks of face-to-face interviews. There was a grand total of twenty six golfers interviewed, a total of four golf courses visited, and one pro shop visited. While re-evaluating the Customer Development Goals, it is clear that we have succeeded in almost every goal we set. The one that did not get completed was a blog post. This goal ended up getting changed due to the fact that there are ways of getting our idea out there that will be more beneficial to us. We will be getting feedback by getting the website (****) out on to multiple social media platforms. By utilizing the power that Facebook and Twitter have, we will ensure a larger amount of feedback, which can be gathered as the future unfolds. While looking at all of the results as a whole, there were some very positive conclusions that can be drawn. First, there was a high rate of technology usage among the twenty-six people interviewed. This is a big plus because people will not seem intimidated or overwhelmed by the technology Google is about to release. Also, we were able to see what aspects of the application or of most interest to the golfers. The main surprise there was the popular reception that Golfing Social received. People seemed to like the idea of connecting with randoms, friends, and family. Also, there has never been a first person recording of a once in a lifetime shot. Now people will be able to prove they hit that 100 foot putt and relive the memorable experiences lived on golf course.

Application of Data to make Changes

This Customer Discovery Process has proven to be very effective for World Glass Golf. Although some great results have come, there will continue to be interviews made and data gathered, so we will be able to learn more and more about the wants and needs of our potential customers. With the initial Customer Discovery Process performed there were two major conclusions and adjustments that needed to made to our golfing application. The first one was the importance of the Golfing Social aspect, and the second one was how important it will be to make rentals available during the introduction phase of the product. Golfing Social was initially thought of as a minor compliment to the overall application. After looking at the interviews, it is clear that this will actually be a vital part of what we are offering. It is no secret just how popular Facebook is getting. There are billions and billions of user across the array of different social platforms. This social media platform, Golfing Social, will have a niche market, but could still be very successful. The application will definitely have the capability of linking to major social media websites, which will make it one of our biggest marketing tools as well. Going forward with the development of the application, we will be putting more importance on the Golfing Social aspect, and will try to gain more in depth information through future interviews. The second, and most important, aspect that we need to further develop is the opportunity for rental agreements. The entire outcome of the application is based on the general public's adoption rate of Google Glasses. At first, people might be timid to make the transition, or it might be too expensive for a large portion of the public. If we can still have people using the application through a one day rental, we can still assure success of the application. We would be targeting golfing pro shops and golf resorts to form rental agreements. We would rent them the application and Google Glasses in exchange for a monthly rental fee and a percentage of their total rental sales. During the introduction and implementation phase this will be what makes or brakes us as an organization. Rental agreements will eventually fade away as the adoption of Google's new product raises. While considering these two minor changes, it is important to make changes or improvements to the Business Model Canvas. In our situation we have looked at the Key Activities portion, and made sure to note the importance of the Golfing Social portion. Also, we went to the Customer Segments and noted that Rental Agreements will be crucial to the initial success and reach of our application. Overall, the Customer Discovery Process has been a success and has left us wanting more out of our potential clientele. We have a positive outlook on our new innovative idea and we encourage you to keep yourself updated by visiting our PTLIGA.