In October of 2012, Blue Bottle Coffee reached out to the Google Ventures Team to have the fellow co-creators of the Design Sprint, John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz, help them answer their problem at hand. Blue Bottle Coffee and its CEO, James Freeman, wanted to create a more personalized experience for their customers on their website. James wanted the customers who visited their site for the first time or the twentieth time to have the same experience they’d have in one of their stores. This led the Blue Bottle Coffee team, along with John and Braden, on a week-long sprint to answer the question of: 

How might we elevate the Blue Bottle Coffee shopping experience online?

The team went through the five-day process of the design sprint, and they discovered that the best solution to this problem was to bring the hospitality that Blue Bottle Coffee was known for in-store to the digital space. They did this by prototyping three different websites for their customers to test and respond to. They also chose to keep the brand a secret from the customers who were the testers. They heard comments back from their customer, ranging from a site being cliche to not having the customer’s full trust in the site, which would affect the sales on the site. They were surprised to learn that customers preferred a site with more information and knowledge on each type of coffee, validating the brand as coffee experts. Once the week-long process was over and the insight and feedback from customers were gathered, John and Braden followed up with Blue Bottle Coffee “to help coach them through detailed design and development of the website. In addition to feedback and advice, we created wireframes to summarize and communicate the most important content on each page.” 

“A few months later, Blue Bottle launched their new website, and their online sales growth doubled- With a bigger team and new technology, they expanded the web store and began experimenting with new offerings. They knew it would take years to get the online store right-but in the sprint, they started on their path”(Knapp, Pg.26).  This goes on and continues to validate the importance and efficiency of the Design Sprint Process. This process saved the company not only time but also resources and money. The Design Sprint allowed Blue Bottle Coffee to race directly to (pun intended) what their target audience (i.e., Coffee drinkers who want a customized shopping experience) wanted and needed from their online shopping experience, which boiled down to expertise, hospitality, and a trustworthy company to put their money into. And that’s exactly what happened. 

Design Sprints like this allow for other companies and even people to feel confident that the time and creative investment that is clearing your week schedule and collaborating with your co-workers will leave you and your company with actionable results that may lead to a great payoff for the company.

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Sources:

Gv. “Case Study: Blue Bottle Sprints with GV.” Medium, Sprint Stories, 6 July 2017, sprintstories.com/case-study-blue-bottle-sprints-with-gv-f452789b8ecd

Knapp, Jake, et al. Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days. Simon & Schuster, 2016.