How to Create Value Propositions and Storyboards for Your Product (Instacart Project)

Overview

For the final project of Agile Meets Design Thinking, second course of Digital Product Management Certification delivered by University of Virginia, I have chosen Instacart, an American company that operates a grocery delivery and pick-up service in the United States and Canada according to Wikipedia.

According to CNBC, the valuation of Instacart has reached $17.7 billion in 2020, which almost doubled compared to the previous valuation in 2019. With that, Instacart has reached Airbnb in terms of valuation, yet it is still in the growth stage with continuously launching new partnerships and increasing customer adoption due to COVID19 pandemic.

In this article, I will first explain the concepts taught by Alex Cowan in this course with their application on Instacart, which I created for the final project of this certification. Below is the outline of this article.

1. Positioning Statement
2. List of Personas
3. Screener Question for Persona Selection
4. Problem Scenarios, Alternatives, and Value Proposition Trio
5. Solution for Problem Statement with User Stories

Part 1: Positioning Statement

According to Alex Cowan, who is the instructor of this course, positioning statement is a great way to test of how far along you are on formulating the business early in the process. We will use Geoff Moore’s (of Crossing the Chasm) syntax for the positioning statement here:

For (target customer)

who (statement of the need or opportunity),

the (product name) is a (product category)

that (statement of key benefit — that is, compelling reason to buy).

Unlike (primary alternative),

our product (statement of primary differentiation).

Below is the positioning statement for Instacart considering the grocery shopper.

• For [grocery shopper], who [wants to save time on grocery shopping], [Instacart] is an [grocery delivery and pickup service] that [enables the groceries to be prepared for pickup or delivered to their home].
• Unlike [the delivery and pickup services offered by some groceries], our product [provides a wide variety of grocery store options with the same shopping experience and monthly subscription options]

Part 2: List of Personas

As a first step, it is important not to restrict yourself with specific personas that may come to mind first. Brainstorming a list of personas and then prioritizing them is a great technique to solve this problem. Below is the list of personas that were identified with this approach.

Amongst these personas, “Paul the delivery shopper” has been chosen for this project with the highest priority, as we are looking to improve the product features of Instacart app to enhance the grocery shopping experience of users in Canada.

Alex Cowan has great articles about personas on his website. If you are interested, you can check “most common mistakes in building user personas” and “using personas for design, development and growth”.

Part 3: Screener Question for Persona Selection

In this step, a screener question is drafted so that we make sure the persona is specific enough to take action on. According to Alex Cowan:

Always start with a screening question you can use to identify subjects- even if you’re not about to interview any, it would help make sure your persona is adequately specific.

Below screener question will be used to make sure that the interviewees are aligned with the selected persona “Paul the delivery shopper “ .

We want to make sure the individual is a shopper, who have used Instacart for grocery delivery for more than two times in the last 6 months, to make sure it was not just a one time usage.

Part 4: Problem Scenario, Alternatives and Value Proposition Trio

For the top persona “Paul the delivery shopper”, two alternative problem scenarios/jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) have been identified, along with user’s current alternatives and the proposed value proposition:

The first problem scenario is about a shopper trying to find the best price of a specific item in any of the stores that are available for his/her location.

Problem Scenarios/JTBD: I want to search for a specific item that I need in different stores easily.

Currently the user has to do multiple searches after selecting stores separately.

Current Alternatives: I need to select all the stores separately to search for a specific item in different stores.

Proposed solution is a search functionality that allows the user to search all available stores for an item before selecting a store.

Value Proposition: Customers will be able to search for a specific item in all stores with a single search before selecting a store.

The second problem scenario is about a shopper trying to understand the fees he/she would pay for Instacart vs. potential savings from the promotions or discounts.

Problem Scenarios/JTBD: I cannot see how much I saved on an order vs. I paid for Instacart fees.

Currently the user has to make assumptions for the price markup that Instacart has on grocery items and add the Instacart fees on top of that.

Current Alternatives: I must assume the average price markup is X% and calculate it first. Then, add up the other fees + optional tip.

Proposed solution is a functionality that allows the user to view the total fees and savings with a click of a button.

Value Proposition: Provide the customer the savings vs. Instacart fees when requested (ie. click a button).

Part 5: Solution for the Problem Statement/JTBD with User Stories

According to Alex Cowan, user stories have a specific format, which is designed to help the story writer be descriptive and to drive better discussions about implementation with the rest of their team.

As a [persona],

I want to [do something]

so that I can [realize a reward]

When done right, a persona helps prompt the following important questions about the user which are crucial to understand the customers.

Epic User Story

As [Paul the delivery shopper],

I want to [find promotions or items that are on sale easily]

so that I can [save on my shopping expenses]

Epic Story- Detail (Storyboard & Child Stories)

Storyboard for Epic Story

Storyboarding is an excellent tool when it comes to pushing yourself and your team to think substantially about your customers. According to Alex Cowan, storyboarding will help you:

1. Test the depth and scope of your understanding about the persona(s) and problem scenario(s)
2. Stimulate interest and discussion in the story with your implementation team (and peers on the product side)
3. Push you to think through the details so you’ve implementers don’t have to start from scratch there

Below is the storyboard I have created using Storyboardthat, for this Epic Story.

Now, we will further expand the Epic Story into Child Stories. While epic stories describe a user action, child stories take the epic stories one step deeper by detailing them. These stories will later be used in creating test scenarios.

Storyboards can also be used for child stories similar to Epic Stories. Below is the storyboard I have drawn for the Child Story 1 — functionality to search all stores for an item with a single search.

Conclusion

This course offers a very effective and applicable framework for creating value propositions using personas, problem statements and storyboards. The course is full of real life applications and simulations that not only gives the theory, but also the opportunity to see and apply it into into real life situations as much as possible.

This course would be very to product managers who want gain skills in Agile and Design thinking with a product management perspective and entrepreneurs who would like to design new products or improve existing ones with a similar approach. Thank you Alex Cowan!