U.S. employment in the floral sector dropped by more than 50% between 2001-2014 and nearly 40% of U.S. floral businesses have closed since 2000. The floral industry is dying. Where is the opportunity to revitalize this wilting industry? We did primary and secondary research to identify jobs to be done and develop storyboards. Our challenge statement was: “Locally-invested, urban professionals struggle to find unique flowers from a source they’re connected to and get frustrated by how briefly they last.” We developed a concept called Local Flora. Local Flora is a pop-up that provides locally-invested, urban professions with the opportunity to build a relationship with their community through locally-sourced, seasonal flowers, and complementary artisanal products. Our pop-up aimed to test whether: (1) the CSA subscription model was more compelling than a one-off purchase; (2) the complementary products add value/interest/draw. 72% of our pop-up's purchasing customers purchased the CSA option, confirming the va…
Esther Perel, a psychotherapist notable for exploring human relationships and desires once said: “This is the first time in the history of humankind where we are trying to experience sexuality in the long term...This is the first time that we want sex over time about pleasure and connection that is rooted in desire... at the heart of sustaining desire in a committed relationship, I think is the reconciliation of two fundamental human needs... our need for security and our need for adventure into one relationship, give me belonging, give me identity, give me continuity, but give me transcendence and mystery and awe all in one.Give me comfort, give me edge.Give me novelty, give me familiarity. Give me predictability, give me surprise. All we think it's a given, and toys and lingerie are going to save us with that.” Relationships nowadays becomes far more complicated than before, human desires have also developed deeper. Though people’s sex toy purchasing motivations varies due to culture differences, gender di…
Urban dwellers perceive the retail of cheese as impersonal. They seek intimate and curated ways to experience cheese. Cheese Don’t Tell focuses on the eternal sensory ritual and pleasure cheese provides. Through cheese confessions, we uncover personal relationships with cheese in order to take visitors on an intimate, witty and supremely cheesy journey. Our pop-up incites people to confess to their deepest secrets regarding cheese retail and consumption, to be awarded a penitence to that is customized to them. Unlike generic grocery stores and overwhelming cheese shops, our offering provides a sensory, intimate, and experimental experience that facilitates indulging in the guilty pleasures of life.
Kuli Kuli is the first American company to bring moringa to the US market. Moringa is a tree with high levels of antioxidants and other beneficial nutrients. It was recently named the superfood of 2018 in a segment on Good Morning America. Kuli Kuli sources moringa from regions in Central America, Southeast Asia, and West Africa. They work with farmers to help source fairly-traded, high-quality moringa to use in a variety of products, providing them with a competitive advantage. Currently, Kuli Kuli lacks an adequate supply of moringa that meets their quality standards, so they are facing a bottleneck and cannot meet their customer demand. Kuli Kuli seeks to adjust their standards to increase the supply of moringa and meet their demand. We have assessed the existing standards and have provided recommendations on how to modify the standards. While adjusting the standards will help Kuli Kuli solve their bottleneck in the short run, we believe that there is still need for a long-term solution. They are still sub…
People feel overwhelmed and unengaged with the news. Now Here This responds to today’s chaotic digital news environment. By engaging listeners through an audio-based experience, Now Here This uses meditation and news to unlock greater presence and engagement with what’s going on in the world. Where physical walls typically divide people and digital walls enable hostility, this wall is a physical gathering place and an opportunity to participate in public discourse through recording and listening to the opinions of others.
Our research into laundry habits uncovered significant pain points around hand washing of delicates and special clothing. We also noted that people are willing to take extra steps to care for their delicates and specialty fabrics. We created a concept store that sells softly-scented laundry soap that cares for delicate fabrics while also caring for skin.
Etta + Billie is a natural body care company founded and led by Alana Rivera, selling beautiful, high-quality soaps, scrubs, lotions and other goods and based in San Francisco, California. Our team from the California College of the Arts MBA in Design Strategy program was tasked with analyzing opportunities for Alana’s operations based on several months of research. While Alana has already delineated a clear strategic vision for the company, we focused on analyzing Etta + Billie’s overall production capacity. This research aligns key opportunities in order to focus Etta + Billie’s efforts on increasing capabilities to enable and scale capacity necessary to support aggressive revenue targets through 2020. The opportunities identified in this report are presented in a phased approach and include recommendations for managing Etta + Billie’s capacity expansion for revenue growth. Other important components in this approach include balancing wholesale relationships and accommodating product constraints that ac…
For people who have fear and uncertainties with autonomous vehicles, the Omo Pop-Up Stop builds familiarity and acceptance around the technology behind autonomous vehicles. Unlike Tesla’s Pop Ups, the Omo Pop-Up Stop creates social influence and understanding around its safety features so its "riders" can feel at ease. By providing a pop-up stop for autonomous vehicles combining the benefits of a cars salesman, and the flexibility of a car as a service business model, we are enabling people to try, gain confidence, and use an AV for the first time, affordably.
Bert’s Bites is an artisanal food company, founded by Roberta Intrater, offering a uniquely blended snack of oats, corn flakes, almonds, and dried cranberries. Unlike its competitors, Bert’s Bites is handmade in San Francisco, sourcing only the best ingredients made to perfection using Roberta’s own recipe. Our vision for Roberta and Bert’s Bites is to develop Bert’s Bites into a company with a revenue of at least $90,000 annually within 3 years, in order to operate with the proposed co-packer model paired with an office staff to support Roberta’s operations. We designed an operations plan to help grow and sustain Bert's Bites by concentrating on the the following key areas: Outsourcing to CoPacker Model, Increasing Brand Valuation, Restructure through Organizational Design. Our recommendations include: implementing a dashboard tool for hiring, internal organization metrics, and costs; a three phased approach to entering to a copacker model, and streamlining how communications and marketing occur.
Five and Diamond, a small niche fashion store in the heart of San Francisco, caters to a wide array of fringe fashion enthusiasts and lifestyles. Though technology is a big influence in the bay area, Five and Diamond pushes back with alternatives to the conformity around us. The unique taste and experience that Five and Diamond sells and delivers to their customers is thanks to the current owner of Five and Diamond, Haley Kozlicki. She decides what the store carries, the tone it sets and the people that she works with.