The Challenge

Research

industry Analysis

I pulled the industry report from IBIS World and handed it off to two team members to extract data around:

• Industry Performance

• Key Trends and Technological Shifts

• Competitive Landscape

• Operating Conditions

The first responder industry, in particular, firefighting, is made up of two categories: fully funded “career” firefighters and volunteer firefighters. Eighty-seven percent of all U.S. firefighters are volunteers and have regular day jobs. Volunteer firefighters have to pay for their own tools, equipment, and technology. Big-ticket items like the station and fire trucks are the only things provided by the city. The other 13% are “career firefighters,” meaning that being a firefighter is their full-time job. These firefighters receive a salary, and their departments have large budgets for technology and equipment paid for by the city. Career fire departments are typically located in large metropolitan cities.

Empathy

Competitive Analysis

During the empathy phone call with Joe’s cousin, we found out that the fire station closest to the scene uses a list, notepad, and a cell phone to reach out to volunteer firefighters to see if they are available, and, to coordinate the response. The chief is responsible for calling firefighters in and routing resources to the scene as they arrive. A minimum of five people are needed to operate and dispatch a firetruck. We asked why the firehouse did not use existing apps or services and was told the usability of low-cost options do not provide enough value to warrant the cost.

Upon learning this, I tasked two other team members with running competitive analysis on existing solutions used by “career” and volunteer stations focused on pricing, features, and usability.

Key Insights:

1. Large-scale legacy software systems from companies like Motorola and Alcatel Lucent cost a minimum of $100k per year and cost upwards of a million dollars to implement and maintain.

2. Fire stations have a choice of three smaller well-known companies that make software to help volunteer fire chiefs, all rank low in terms of usability.

3. The industry standard for volunteer fire chiefs: a phone, two-way radio, and paper, as in the responding fire station to the Seaside fire.

User Journey Mapping

After the empathy call and listening to the audio from the scenes, Joe and I mapped out a detailed end to end user journey for a volunteer fire chief and firefighter when responding to an emergency. We needed to understand where the friction lay in the process.

Key Insight: When we mapped the competitive analysis information to the user journey, we realized that existing software targeted at volunteer firefighters did not cover the entire user journey; only a quarter of it at best. The red sections (above) are where Responder competitors add value along the high-level journey. The Seaside fire response fell short in coordination and allocation of resources after arriving on the scene.

User Interviews

User interviews were a challenge. It was now Saturday morning, and no one on the team aside from myself had ever conducted one. I ran the team through best practices. Since our goal was to build a business, I chose to structure the user interview as a problem interview; then, if the interviewee did have the problem, we’d do a solution interview (discussing product features/design principles), and then ask for a sale if the interviewee seemed excited about the solution. We developed open-ended, non-leading questions for them to ask during the problem interview portion. The team identified 3 fire stations in the area that they could interview. After speaking to the first fire station, we learned that all fire stations in DC were “career” fire stations fully funded by the city, thus not in our volunteer fire stations' target market. Upon returning to our team room, we decided to google and cold-call fire stations across the country. The biggest problem was that volunteers are never at the station unless there is or had been an emergency. Luckily, throughout two hours, we were able to speak to five stations spanning Canada, Tennessee, and South Carolina.

Research Synthesis & Problem Statement

Problem Statement

Volunteer fire chiefs have no way to know in real-time the location and eta of responding firefighters to provide an estimate of a unit (firetruck) to the scene of an emergency while coordinating multiple units.

The Solution: Product Design & Business Model

Business Model

Since part of Startup Weekend is to build a business, I designed a tiered price SaaS revenue model that scales based on the fire-station size as the primary revenue stream. The industry research showed that, on average, there are 30 firefighters per station, over 30,000 volunteer fire stations across the U.S., and over 500,000 volunteer firefighters. My biggest concern was knowing that volunteer firefighters would pay for this tool themselves. It had to be affordable and better than existing solutions. I took inspiration from Google apps and decided to charge a price per user added to the system, and the price would tier down the more users added. A second revenue stream was to sell analytics data and reports to insurance companies, equipment manufacturers, and government agencies once enough data is collected. As the company grows, a secondary revenue stream could be activated by selling analytics to insurance companies, equipment manufacturers, and government agencies.

Pitch Deck

By this time, it was midday on Saturday, and it was time to turn the research we’ve done into execution. Since I was the only one with the design experience to build a prototype, I outlined a pitch deck for the presentation we needed to deliver on Sunday at 12 PM. Between the five other team members they built the presentation and practiced delivering it. This is a startup competition, below are what angels and VC’s want to know.

Brand Messaging

Before hopping into Keynote to prototype a solution, I wanted to write out why this company should exist and give it a purpose.

Design Principles

Allow a fire chief to visually coordinate a response and a firefighter to respond to an emergency with one click.

Primary features:

1. Firefighter availability confirmation

2. Real time location tracking of firefighters and resources

3. Time estimates to station and scene

Sketching

High Level App Flow

I drew this high-level flow to help me think through the emergency response sequence and how the firefighter app and fire chief app should work together as I began designing.

• First, 911 sends an alert to the fire station closest to the scene

• The fire chief then sends out an alert requesting availability from volunteer firefighters

• If a fire fighter is available, then the chief begins tracking the location and eta of the firefighter

• Once 5 firefighters are available, the chief can assign a firetruck to the scene and visually coordinate a response

Firefighter Screens

Fire chief Screen annotated

Fire Chief Screen in action

The Outcome

Usability & New user Journey

Given the time crunch of the 54-hour event, I could not conduct detailed usability testing, but I was able to show 15 people our fire chief screen and the screen of our competitors and conduct the “5-second test.” No one was able to correctly identify what the competitor's screen was for or what it did. Thirteen participants were able to identify that our new fire chief app was for firefighters, logistics, or coordination.

Below is the competitive advantage slide from the presentation we gave at Startup Weekend, I am showing it to showcase that the product I designed covers the entire user journey for the fire chief. It also shows our screen and the competitors screen. Interested in seeing the entire Startup Weekend presentation? Click here.

validation

Nothing validates a new business like getting your first customer. The team spoke to David (one of the user interviewee’s) on Saturday afternoon when we were conducting user interviews over the phone. It appeared that my strategy for conducting user interviews paid off (problem interview, solution interview, close sale) because our team member, Jenny, received an unexpected email from David on Sunday afternoon as we were practicing for our presentation. We replied to his email with a video demo (as seen above), and he immediately called us asking how soon can he get the service.

And the winner is..

“The best pitches clearly communicated the problem they’re tackling and how they would solve it, displayed a simple prototype that showed how the product works, informed the audience how they would acquire users, and addressed the business potential of the concept.” - Mike Chan, Startup Weekend Organizer

For a full recap of the Washington D.C. 2013 Startup Weekend, click here.