Co-Founder Zac Maurais Shares How the Design Sprint Methodology Has Changed the Way They Work
“We’ve fully embraced this new way of thinking and applied it to our entrepreneurial process.” — Zac Maurais
The co-founders of Austin-based startup Favor, which was recently sold to grocery chain H-E-B, just announced their next company, Sunroom. While Ben Doherty and Zac Maurais’s first startup answered a need in the food delivery space, Sunroom is a real-estate startup that helps renters find homes and apartments and book tours on-demand.
When Sunroom was in stealth mode, I had the opportunity to facilitate a Design Sprint for their team. Now that their new endeavor is out in the open, I took the opportunity to talk with Zac about how their Design Sprint impacted Sunroom, both then and now.
The headline: the Design Sprint has been a powerful tool for the Sunroom team and they’ve adapted it in smart ways that work for them.
Why Design Sprints
First of all, I wanted to know what was the driving force behind Sunroom embarking on a Design Sprint in the first place. What made this tool or way of working intriguing to Zac and the team? “Time is the most valuable asset for companies, especially early stage ones,” Zac said. “Design sprints allow you to talk directly with target customers & make your first attempt at solving their problems. Those conversations and light-weight designs save the company a ton of time in the long-term.”
“Design sprints allow you to talk directly with target customers & make your first attempt at solving their problems. Those conversations and light-weight designs save the company a ton of time in the long-term.”
In addition, the Sprint’s emphasis on working fast, but grounded in customer insights, is also key for Zac: “You can learn a lot from talking directly to customers about something without having to build it all out, which is awesome.”
The Power of a Name
Before our Sprint together, the Sunroom team had worked in a similar fashion, just without the set structure or official name: “We used to do a lot of the same things that are in the Design Sprint, but it was less of ‘Put it in a box with a bow on it.’”
There’s power in putting a name to a certain way of working: “Now we can just refer to it as a Design Sprint: over the next two to three days, we’re gonna be dedicated to uncovering X question.”
Not only that, but Zac has found that the clarity of the Design Sprint even helps with internal understanding: “Everyone in the company is familiar with our design process. Our engineering and operations team know before building a huge new feature we’re going to do a Design Sprint. Our entire team is always curious to hear the results.”
Adapting the Sprint
I was pleased to find out that, since our Sprint together, Sunroom has adopted (and adapted!) many of the methods and folded them into their work: “We’ve made them even more lightweight, and something that we can do with a really small team, like two or three people, instead of seven.”
I was intrigued to find out more about how they’ve tweaked the Design Sprint to work for them, with a smaller team and in a shorter time frame. One way they do it is by compressing the Sprint’s Day 1 and 2 activities (goal setting, knowledge sharing, and sketching) into a couple hours. According to Zac: “Since we’re still an early stage startup, it’s a lot to ask every single person in the company to participate. That said, it’s an important activity, so we’ll pull 2–4 people into the project. Even with a slimmer team we’re able to come out with actionable insight.”
The Need for Speed
Zac has also found that the Sprint’s compressed schedule and clear goal setting can translate to speed to market: “I think that focus makes sure it gets done and gets done quickly.”
Additionally, by testing not only high-level concepts, but also UX and messaging, Sunroom is able to get ideas into development faster. They usually do about two rounds of prototypes, even iterating between interviews as needs or changes become evident. This gets them to a level of refinement fairly quickly: “It gets it to a point that it’s really close to being shippable that I can hand over to an engineer to build the spec and run with it.”
“The focus helps make sure it gets done and gets done quickly.”
Lessons in User Interviews
Because Zac typically leads the user interview portion of their Sprints (how’s that for a hands-on founder?), I picked his brain for advice. What would he say to someone approaching their first user interviews? “I’ve found it’s best not to stress or overthink your questions,” he shared. “Some of the best questions I’ve thought of on the spot. It doesn’t have to be all thought out going in your first interview.”
Despite being so close to the product, Zac isn’t the type who only wants to hear positive feedback from users. He understands the importance of critique: “Sometimes, depending on who the [interviewee] is, they can get into a rhythm of giving positive advice and it’s important to bring them out of it and remind them that you’re really trying to get to why this wouldn’t work. So, I’ll often times ask them, ‘You’ve said a lot of good things, but why is it gonna break? What fears do you still have about it?’”
“As designers, we need to be humble within the process. Approach the project without an ego. Remove your ownership mentality and strive for the best idea. Humility helps make better ideas & keeps you from being upset when customers give unexpected feedback.”
He went on: “We have a tendency as entrepreneurs to think we’ve came up with something really good, but I try to think of the work as not necessarily my work but just concepts. Win or lose, it’s still a win for me. I try to remove the ownership component. Just being humble within the process and not having an ego about your designs. I think that humility helps.”
It was a great leading Zac and Sunroom team through their first Design Sprint. To me, their story really illustrates how five focused days can have long-term effects for a team. As Zac says: “We’ve fully embraced this new way of thinking and applied it to our entrepreneurial process…”
