Sparking product innovation inside Rosetta Stone
We partnered with a newly formed product team at Rosetta Stone to help them discover, prototype, and validate a completely new product for English Language Learners.
Challenges and solutions
Company conditions for innovating are never perfect, Rosetta Stone included. With a roadmap full of competing priorities, senior leaders were skeptical about this project and the challenges we were up against.
Entering an unknown customer segment
Previous products were sold direct-to-consumer. The idea was to develop a new product sold to K-12 schools.
Customer-centered discovery
We identified a viable market opportunity via Problem Framing and lightning rounds of customer research.
New, unproven product leaders
New to Rosetta Stone, Kristie & Maya needed to build trust while leading their newly formed product team.
Team-wide alignment
We established new collaboration methods that encouraged empowering questions and bold ideas.
Slow, siloed, and bureaucratic processes
After 25 years in business, the company had lost some of its creativity and agility.
Rapid prototyping and testing
With a team aligned on the customer problem, our Design Sprint delivered rapid, market-validated insights.
Inefficient remote teams (pre-pandemic)
In 2017, running design sprints across offices & timezones was still new territory for Rosetta Stone and the rest of the world.
Remote and virtual sprinting
We iterated our design thinking methods and tools so that the sprint remained efficient and engaging.
Results
Our Design Sprint was the catalyst that enabled a tremendously successful product launch.
Proved a new opportunity in a new market
Validated prototypes with core student persona
Received buy-in from senior leadership
Product team empowered through market launch
Want results like these?Praise from the product lead
Hear from Kristie Shelley, as she describes the challenges we overcame in making their Design Sprint a huge success.
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