Happy Cactus

Working on super cool FREE checklist for you guys on how to launch and promote tech idea, product, service, startup.

Will be accessible for downloads soon. Stay tuned!

We bet you’ve heard a lot about design thinking. But have you ever asked yourself “How implement the concept of design thinking?” 🧐



Imagine yourself explaining your grandma how to do shopping online. «Here we go, let's switch it on, just unlock it granma.. Insert your birthday date, it's your password’’. 😢🤦‍♀️
Let us tell you, by that moment you would’ve probably lost her. And even if you managed to login into the system, it would not guarantee you a successful delivery.



Facing the challenge, describing above, the group of professionals & our very good friends from Liverpool studio Red Ninja set the goal to solve the problem of elderly people doing shopping online. They gathered ideas from over 350 people running co-creation workshops.



In a carousel, you can see some of the issues which guys discovered during design-sprints & the final simple, clear, structured app interface, which has nothing to do with a sophisticated design, but rather with easy to use design.
Not surprisingly, their choice has fallen on large font, big buttons, highly visible colour contrasts and clear instructions.



So, the design studio were able to build a shopping application “Helping Hand” that connected directly to a major supermarket through a user-friendly interface.

Shate in stories, if you like it! ❤️



@ Google for Startups

We continue our .

With Nastia we were immersing deeper into marketing of tech products last week. We agreed that one of the most important things is to define an unique niche where you meet needs of your users but don't meet a lot of competitors.
We will explain you on the very simple example how to do this. 🙀 Swipe left to see all steps visualised. Don't forget to share this or put like ❤️
✔️ Build a map of an industry your technology exists and try to cluster all your competitors according to the features they share.
✔️ It can be everything – from technology they rely on, target audience they address to price model and additional services they provide.
✔️ Try to understand what are empty niches or what are your opportunity to do differently.
✔️ Don’t be afraid! Bold ideas always can be reduced to the cautious level or… may work as they are!
✔️ Critically estimate if niches you found could have a constant demand?
✔️ Include your niche on the map and compare with your competitors. How fast they can reach you? How can you protect your unique niche? Plan defence.



Share your progress & tag us - we will come back 2 u with some advices 😉

use to navigate the project 🤗



@ Y Combinator

Whether you are alone
or with your family in quarantine
enjoy this time at home to recharge yourself for better achievements...
Happy Easter!

Credit

Join us for the insightful with our Masha, who has run for startups in in London & Liverpool.

📣🙌 Design sprints became a common way to come up with tech solutions with lasting impact. 🤔 Usually, we need 5 days, tons of whiteboards, papers, stickers, cups of coffee, and a special team running . But how to do it in the realm of the social distancing and total cut of budgets?

💥 Here are some tips & digital solutions to adapt 5-days design sprints to online co-creation! 💥

1️⃣ Listen. Do not start , without clear defining of main needs of ALL stakeholders. Do not influence this process, just gather information.

Open a digital board where all stakeholders can put their needs in different windows, instead of stickers & whiteboards. You can use this free tool https://padlet.com/

2️⃣ Analyze. Do not take for granted all discovered. Map all needs. Do correlations of challenges & put them in a strong hierarchy.

Use digital builders like this: https://www.mindmup.com/

3️⃣ Go Back. Share the new of a product to main stakeholders (not end-users yet). Reflect together on the priorities of needs & hierarchy of challenges to solve. Implement changes with your stakeholders in real time

Use https://www.mindmup.com/

4️⃣ Design a prototype or hypothesis of how a new solution might look like. Involve end users at this stage. Do it quickly. Define main feature of , , , based on the discovered needs. Create a final .
Free prototype builder: e.g. this one https://www.justinmind.com/
Use the digital board to vote or discuss changes https://padlet.com

5️⃣ Test a final . Absorb information from your test audience but do not influence opinion! Analyze but not search for reasons & excuses to implement your own ideas!

Use the digital board https://padlet.com/

Good luck! Share it if you like it ❤️

So, our challenge officially has started!

Our first task with our mentee was to design a career development plan for the next 2 months. It is not easy, trust us.
We thought about the plan as a project. A life project. As in any project there should be goals, deadlines, targets, and checking points. In carousel, you can see Nastia’s example. Alternatively, you could draw a creative map (we also put it as an example for you here).



So, here is the first task for you:

1️⃣Define where exactly you want to be in the tech field – whether it is a new profession, division, industry, position, a startup launch. Just remember – the more concrete point you define the easier is to reach it.

2️⃣Think about your career goal as the geographical destination. The absence of some critical skills you might draw as a wet land or mountains to overcome, your existing skills as a boat which helps you to cross the river, mention what you need to acquire before starting your career journey - e.g., additional courses in a specific topic, think about your education, your network, etc.

3️⃣Don’t forget, be focused on what exactly you want to get at the end.

4️⃣Here is your tailored career development plan. Good luck!

😉 Share your progress in your story, tag us, use – we will PM you to send the template to build a career plan😉

🤓 As for us, our destination for the next 2 weeks will be the “Professional Orientation” section. We will be advancing marketing models, , and competitive analysis tools. Stay with us to learn with us.
Tick-tock!

We are launching exciting Challenge!

We will mentor a girl willing to enter tech industry and you will follow all our steps here in IG!

Meet our first mentee – Nastia , a Lecturer in Genetics in Medical University. She wants to combine her medicine background and enter IT sphere as Marketing Specialist in 2 months!

All steps we will be doing with her live, we will also be showcasing here in IG. You will get the same tasks & instructions as Nastia here. Just follow our posts and stories.

You will build & improve with us:
🤟needed soft-skills
🤟needed hard-skills
🤟tech marketing tools
🤟digital analytics tools
🤟startup launching tips
🤟winning CV tips

All materials related to this project you will find under the .

Let us know if you are in by sharing this post and tagging us in your stories ❤️

Use

Expand your opportunities to work in the sphere of digital, IT, technologies without any coding skills!

Take part in our Valentine giveaway and get free access to our online strategic 2 weeks course "Hidden Rules to Win Users of any Technology" until the end of February!

Follow the steps:
❣️You should follow our account!
❣️Like this post!
❣️Share this post in your story tagging one of your friends, who may be interested in the tech course too!

After these 3 steps, we will send you access to the course in direct message.

Important! To enter this promotion, your account must be open for the public

The word Pivot has two meanings: the radical change of a strategy/business model or a fixed point supporting something that turns or balances. We consider Pivot from the point of view of both meanings, actually.

✔️1. Be ready to pivot at any time of your project duration. Just take in mind that this can happen and do not stress out too much once it happens.

✔️Plan MVP for yourself!
2. MVP means validating your idea with a series of small trials, so-called Minimum Valuable Product. What we mean by ""plan"" - set up goals and targets - what you need to get as a result: measure the rate of interest, prove that technology works, prove that technology is interesting, measure the competitiveness of your product, etc. It is an efficient tool to rove that a pivot is needed or not.

✔️Trust your users!
3. Never excuse your product failures. If your users have trouble using technology, if they do not like a user interface or think it does not provide necessary features - accept this, all information is crucial for you. Gather all these facts to carefully and successfully improve or pivot an initial idea.

✔️Pitch! Discuss! Be loud!
4. Pitch your idea to as many professionals as possible. People from your field can be not always positive but at the end of the day, it is a criticism that leads to great improvements. Another point is that the more you describe your startup the more structured picture you get for yourself.

👌For example, the winning idea of our startup (launched in 2017) was born while we were pitching our initial idea in a pub to our colleague from the tech field. After 2 or 3 glasses of beer, we decided to pivot completely.

We wish you prosperous New 2020 Year!

Wishes are good, however, its interely up to you to make 2020 the best year of your life! How can you do that? Here are a few tips to increase your !

*🎄Use a planner or a calendar and find the tools helping you the most
* 🎄Figure out your MIT (most important task) each day instead of long to-do-lists
* 🎄Determine your goals
* 🎄Set smaller goals
* 🎄Put your plan into action
* 🎄Take time to learn something new in every month
* 🎄Think about the me-time: you need to schedule time to rest
* 🎄Create your ideal week, and make time for goal setting
*🎄 Use time blocking - work on only one task at the same time
* 🎄Give yourself the option to change directions - you know, life happens.

Do you have any other productivity tips? Share them with us, write a comment!

The Happy Cactus team wish all of you a delightful, merry christmas! After a year of hard work, it’s time to chill and relax under the tree!... and prepare for the challenges of the next year!

Currently thinking about what kind of courses and free content should we create in the next year.
What would you like to study about in the tech biz field? Let us know and we will do our best! 😏