Insights and Key Takeaways from the Founder Talks
Founders of enna, BHS Technologies, and Stowey alongside designers and innovators, came together to discuss real challenges in product development across different contexts and stages of development.
Several common themes emerged throughout the three founder talks:
- the role of design in defining and sharpening the core idea as well as solving key product challenges
- structured product development processes, including the planning and design of product generations
- the application of design methods across different development phases
- open innovation approaches and design thinking as collaborative frameworks
- a strong and consistent focus on user centricity and real user needs
- early prototyping as a critical success factor for minimizing risk and accelerating validation
- the strategic role of design partners and innovation agencies in the development process
- challenges related to decision-making, resource allocation, and the structural integration of design
- the importance of convincing stakeholders and investors through clarity, usability, and validated value propositions
Particularly exciting were the discussions with participants, which focused on guiding questions such as: How do design methods support your innovation process? Which decisions are strongly shaped by design? When is a product “good enough” for launch? And at what point does external support from design or innovation agencies become beneficial?
The Evolving Role of Design in Innovation
Innovation and design are often viewed as separate disciplines, but in practice they are deeply intertwined. In both start-ups and established organizations, the success of new products and services increasingly depends on how well design methodology is integrated into the innovation process.
At its core, design is no longer limited to aesthetics or the final phase of product development. Instead, it has become a strategic tool that helps teams translate ideas into meaningful, usable, and market-ready solutions. By focusing on real user needs, design enables organizations to reduce complexity, identify opportunities, and create products that truly resonate with people.
From Idea to Product: Why Design Matters Early
Start-ups demonstrate this dynamic particularly well. With limited resources and high uncertainty, design becomes a crucial factor in rapidly transforming early ideas into viable products. It supports fast iterations, helps validate assumptions, and ensures that innovation is not developed solely from an internal perspective but is consistently aligned with user needs.
A look at real examples such as enna shows how design-driven thinking can translate complex ideas into intuitive, user-centered solutions right from the beginning. This way to the enna-Story.
Although we looked at three products with completely different levels of complexity during the mcbw Event, it was fascinating to observe that similar patterns in the applied methods kept reappearing throughout their development. This methodological common thread across such diverse cases was, for me, the most interesting insight from the panel. – Jakob Bergmeier, Co-founder of enna after the event
Beyond Start-ups: Design in Established Organizations
However, the relevance of innovation design extends far beyond the start-up context. Across industries, established companies face similar challenges: changing customer expectations, accelerated technological change, and increasingly complex markets. In this environment, design plays a crucial role as a bridge between strategy, technology, and user experience. The story of bhs technologies illustrates how design also plays a decisive role in industrial and technical environments, where usability, clarity, and system integration are key to innovation success.
What I took away from the talk is how different the paths of start-ups can be, and how important it is to consider user needs from the very beginning. It was especially interesting to see that similar methods work in very different contexts. This once again shows that an open innovation approach and close collaboration with users is often a key success factor. – Lukas Lederer, Team Lead Product Management, Design & Usability at BHS Technologies after the event
Design as a Bridge Between Strategy, Technology, and Users
When design is integrated into the innovation process early on, it helps organizations make more informed decisions – not only about what is being developed, but also why and for whom. At the same time, it strengthens collaboration across disciplines and creates a holistic perspective on complex challenges in which business goals, technological possibilities, and user needs are considered equally.
For users, this results in products and services that are more intuitive, more relevant, and more closely aligned with their actual needs. Complexity is reduced, usability is improved, and solutions become more meaningful in everyday life – ultimately leading to better experiences and higher satisfaction.
For organizations, this user-centered approach creates measurable value: it reduces the risk of developing products that miss their intended purpose, increases adoption and product-market fit, and strengthens differentiation in the market. At the same time, it enables more efficient decision-making and creates a shared foundation for value creation across strategy, technology, and user experience.
Continuous Innovation as a Mindset
Innovation design is less a single process step and more an organization-wide mindset. At its center are empathy, curiosity, a willingness to experiment, and the ability to continuously learn. Companies that embrace this approach develop solutions not only from a technological or economic perspective, but in close collaboration with the people they are intended for. This results in products and services that are more relevant, more effective, and sustainable in the long term. Therefore:
- Go where your users actually are
- Involve users early and continuously throughout the development process and use their feedback as a foundation for decision-making
- Actively involve your team in the process so that needs, challenges, and usage contexts are not only discussed but directly experienced and understood
- Do not be afraid to start: begin early, test ideas quickly, and learn iteratively from insights and feedback
