Colleagues of Venture Factory have been collaborating with external experts and project partners of the European project DIGITRANS for a year, developing an innovative method for comprehensive and effective development of digital business models. Digital transformation represents a key challenge for small and medium-sized companies if they wish to keep their competitive position on the market.

After a year, it was time to try out the DIGITRANS method for the development of innovative digital business models in practice. On 13 March we worked with company Juniba d.o.o. in the renovated coworking facilities to set up a digital business model. The company works in nautics, offering traditional nautical solutions. In the last year, a new innovative product for sailors, called Anchor Buddy, was developed within the existing company, enabling bigger security for anchored sailboats. With help of a digital business model, the company will be able to fully take advantage of the solution’s business potential.

The company has already developed the first prototype of Ancor Buddy. In the first stage, we’ve exactly defined all the components of the business model, but we especially focused on defining the target customer as well as set up the method and processes for testing hypotheses about the typical customer. Good knowledge of the client or customer is crucial for success on the market. It’s important to imagine the target customer as a person who can most easily be described with gender and age, usually also their social context (family, employment, profession), but what’s most crucial is to know the person’s motives and values. In this, we were aided by a tool or model for creating personas. Personas describe our typical customer with a concrete person that we can imagine. We used a well-known model published in the Business Model Generation book (developed in the company XPLANE), which helps us put ourselves in the shoes of a typical customer and describe the typical customer in detail. We further asked ourselves about the size of the market that we’re addressing, what sorts of solutions already exist on the market, and how they differ from our product. And, most importantly, where we can find the first customer.

The next stage includes testing hypotheses about the buyer and the product on a typical sample of potential users. During its testing, the company will include all state-of-the-art marketing approaches, enabled by modern solutions and digital communication channels.

In the following month, we will include more companies in the programme for transforming traditional business models to digital ones. If you are facing similar challenges and wish to participate in the programme, we invite you to join us. Write to us at info@startupmaribor.si and we will invite you in for a personal interview.

Glimpses from the event can be seen in the video below: