business model, customer development, e245, engr245, lean launchpad, lean startup, stanford, startup, steve blank

1. DIGITAL CITIZEN PROJECT
Solve “Trust” on the internet
New Market, New Technology
Sigalit George Dunchadhn Marcin Andy
BS Symbolic Systems
Hustler, Picker
BS Computer Science
Hacker, Hustler
BS Computer Science
Hacker
MBA
Picker, Hustler
MSx, MS CS (Alumni)
Hacker, Designer
BLAST
People discover experiences
via people they “trust”.
Existing Market, Better Data and User-
centricity
Over 7.5 million images and 740,000
profiles scraped from Instagram
151 interviews
AGORA

2. Business Canvas 1.0 - It would be amazing!
If we could build it...
Internet companies
with personal review
and rating
mechanisms, entities
that care about safety
on the internet.
Partner motivation:
participation in the
system and value
created, mission
Supplier motivation:
participation in the
system, profit sharing
Ultimately catalyze
interactions between all
agents in the digital
economy.
Test hypothesis the
majority of economic
value will be captured
by digital platforms
Second segment, the
users themselves -
use their reputation to
claim value (i.e. save
time or money).
Today, you may be a
respected “digital
citizen” i.e. engage in
multiple online
economic activities,
but you still need to
prove from scratch
you are trustworthy
on every new online
platform you sign up
for. We believe it’s a
huge inefficiency. Our
solution will make
your digital
reputation finally
matter.
Growth costs: cost of end-user acquisition, B2B sales
Servers: AWS tax
Adoption cost: bootstrap “minimum viable network effect”
Eng Cost: Engineering and ML to power the APIs
Trust reduces transaction costs.
Monetization ideas to be explored:
- API model (freemium, nominal fee for API calls)
- platform model (agents exchange data/insights on
our platform, we collect a service fee cut)
User interviews
Partner interviews
Understanding data
extraction policies
Evaluating ability to
provide value added
data models
Pulling data from
existing platforms.
ML/data modeling to
interpret data and
capture valuable
insights.
digital platforms:
- B2B sales of API
users:
- Chrome plug-in
- web/mobile appX
digital platforms:
trusted b. partner for
integrate solution
users:
industry standard
that evokes trust,
fairness and integrity
X

3. [launch]
Digital Citizen:
solve digital trust!

4. Milestone 1: Product Market Fit?
● Fake users and accounts are a pain point for digital platforms
● Room trashing is a big problem for hotels
● Experiments:
1. Talked to 8 representatives from platforms including Airbnb, LinkedIn, and Facebook, and
asked if detecting fake users is a pain point.
2. Talked to 6 representatives from the hospitality industry and asked if guests trashing
rooms is a pain point
WEEK
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5. Fake users and accounts are a pain point for digital platforms
“Fake accounts aren’t a huge problem for us” -- Facebook
“We already have a team
for this” -- AirBnB Security Engineer
“Room trashing is not a big problem for us” -- Sheraton Manager
“Damage to rooms is
infrequent” -- Las Vegas Hotel Manager
X
X
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WEEK
Milestone 1: Running into a Wall
Room trashing is a big problem for hotels
1/8
0/6
Learning:
● Not every problem is a painful enough problem for users to solve
● If people don’t have pain point, what are we doing?

6. Digital Citizen
Building the world's trust API
Interviews
This Week: 20
Total: 55
Sigalit George Dunchadhn Marcin Andy
BS Symbolic Systems
Hustler, Picker
BS Computer Science
Hacker, Hustler
BS Computer Science
Hacker
MBA
Picker, Hustler
MSx, MS CS (Alumni)
Hacker, Designer
Our platform makes your digital reputation portable
to help create a safer, more trustworthy internet

7. [WEEK2]
Black hole:
No sparkle

8. The cloud of
brainstorm

9. 4 Hour Brainstorm:
● SEARCH for services is a BIG
problem
● Voted on Reverse Marketplace
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X
Learning:
Don’t fall in love with an idea,
move on. Killing an idea is
equally important.
WEEK
Milestone 1: Restart

10. The cloud of
brainstorm

11. [WEEK3]
Planetary system:
Reverse Market &
Instant Recos

12. Reverse Marketplace
Don't waste time searching, let businesses find you
Service providers bid on your
requests, providing you lower prices
while providing them more customers
Week 4

13. Key Failed Hypothesis:
Having too many or too few customers during specific time periods is a major
problem for SMBs.
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X
WEEK
Milestone 2: Putting a Stake in the Ground
So we got out of the building,
And got down to interviewing...

14. “This isn’t an issue for us” -- Bowling Alley
“We are not interested” -- Nail Salon
“We are busy most of the time” -- Laser Hair Removal
“We have a steady flow of work” -- Tire Shop Manager
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9
X
Learning:
● No problems are obvious problems, obvious problems are
solved.
● Getting out of the building teaches you more than
whiteboarding
WEEK
And Back Into the Rabbit Hole...

15. [WEEK3]
Planetary system:
Reverse Market &
Instant Recos

16. [WEEK5]
Agora

17. “I would love an easier way to find things to do in Palo Alto!”
-- Stanford GSB
“I spend SO much time searching through all the junk on Yelp”
-- Stanford Undergrad
“I wish my friends could be my personal travel guides!”
-- Stanford Professor
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9
X
WEEK
… A Glimmer of Hope

18. Agora
Discover new, curated experiences that your friends love too
Novel, personalized recommendations for
fun experiences in your area
Week 6

19. [WEEK5]
Agora

20. [WEEK7]
Focus on the visual

21. ● Pictures of a users’ friends help in making a
decision
● Experiment: Formed 3 user test groups of 8 GSB
students each for our MVP and surveyed the users
● Result: Overwhelming “YES!”
● Conclusion: Let’s use Instagram!
● Learning: Solve the problems users talk to you about
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WEEK
Milestone 3: Visual Content

22. Conclusion:
● Let’s use Instagram!
● Instagram API has been restricted…
● Who cares? Let’s scrape ‘em!
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X
WEEK
Milestone 3: Visual Content (interlude)

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WEEK

24. [WEEK7]
Space Telescope
Focus on visual

25. [WEEK8]
To Blast and beyond

26. Blast
Let’s have a Blast! Discover fun experiences that your friends love too!
Novel, personalized recommendations
for fun experiences in your area, socially-
proven by pictures of your friends
Week 8

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X
WEEK
Blast Sales
Bare Bowls
founder and owner
$25 per month
Blue Bottle Coffee
COO
$10 per recurring customer

28. Blast is live today:
blastexperiences.com
Over 7.5 million images and 740,000 profiles scraped from
Instagram
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WEEK

29. Our Company, From Day One to Now1
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WEEK The Final MVP

30. ● 4 of 6 will continue on as a team
● Andy, Dunchadhn, Rish, and Sigalit
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WEEK Moving Forward

32. Appendix

33. Blast
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9
X
WEEK The Blast Universe

34. Review websites
such as Yelp,
TripAdvisor,
Google Maps
Instagram
Reservation
Management
Systems
Square
Experience Businesses
● Adventure
● Night Out
● Leisure
● Culture
Consumers
● Young, urban
professionals
● Families with
children 8-14
Cheap exposure to
potential customers
Simple adaptive
pricing
“Down” time
management
Time savings
Personalized
Recommendations
Social Proofing
Growth costs: cost of SMB and end-user acquisition
Servers: AWS tax
Adoption cost: bootstrap “minimum viable network effect”
Eng Cost: Engineering and ML to power the dual sided
product
Commision: a cut of every sale created by the product
Membership Fee: for businesses, either one time or
subscription
Advertising: essentially AdWords in our system
Acquiring customers
Chicken/egg problem
Scraping Data from
Instagram
Experience
Businesses:
trusted b. partner for
integrated solution
Consumers:
industry standard that
evokes trust, integrity
User and business
data
A sales force
Marketing expert
SMBs:
- web/mobile app
- digital campaign
Consumers:
- web/mobile app
- social media
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WEEK The Blast Universe