I know there's a lot of other amazing talks going

on at this moment right now at I/O. We almost

didn't come to this talk because there's so many good ones.

So super appreciate it.

We're going to talk to you guys today about design sprints.

And you actually totally scored by coming to this talk

because it's not just one talk, but two, two in one.

And first we're going to talk about design sprints

at Google Ventures with startups,

and then we're going to hear about designs

sprints at big Google.

So first of all Daniel and I are going

to talk to you about what we do at Google Ventures.

So Daniel and I are design partners at Google Ventures.

And we're going to tell you how to prototype and test

pretty much any product in just five days.

So Daniel take it away.

DANIEL BURKA: Well, before I even

get started I want to talk to you guys

about a problem I've got.

Unfortunately it's a really big problem.

In fact, it's a Super Mario scale problem,

a really big Super Mario scale problem.

I love Mario.

I have since it first came out.

And so you can imagine, this is going to date me a little bit,

but I was super excited when they announced the DS

and announced that they were making the new Super Mario

Brothers where you could become giant Mario.

And so at the time I was living in eastern Canada,

way off on the edge of the continent,

in a little place called Prince Edward Island where I grew up.

And I didn't have a whole lot of disposable income at the time,

but it was just after Christmas, and I

had gotten some cash gifts from some family.

And I was thinking, aw, you know,

I could totally get one of those things,

and it would be awesome.

I already had a little sneaking suspicion

that I had maybe a bit of an addiction problem with Mario,

but I decided, you know what?

Screw it.

I'm going to go get one anyway.

And so I drove up to this place called

the Future Shop in Charlotte Town.

I swear to God it's called the Future Shop.

It's like Best Buy.

And it was no less inviting in January

then as this photo, which I grabbed off Google Maps,

is now.

This is the actual shop, a real photo of it.

And so I went in there, and I threw down my hard earned

money.

And it was awesome.

It was just everything I imagined it would be.

So I played it.

And I played it a lot.

I played it every single day for about three months straight.

I beat every single level.

And then I beat every single level plus the secret levels,

then every single level plus the secret levels

with all the coins on every level.

And then on the DS you could have three different lives

per game.

And so I beat it once.

I beat it again.

And then I beat it again even faster.

And it was at the end of March.

And I was just about to reset the device so I could do it

three more times, and I was like, oh, fuck this.

And I put in a box, and I mailed it off my sister

in Los Angeles.

And I never saw the damn thin again.

But unfortunately I was out about $170

that I didn't really have to burn

and three months of my life.

I swear to God, I played hours of this game.

JAKE KNAPP: Well, to throw into sharp contrast what an idiot

Daniel is I want to tell you a story of my own.

And this also involves Nintendo.

This is from a simpler time.

So if you remember when Nintendo looked like this.

Raise your hand if you remember.

Oh, OK.

Awesome.

All right, great.

I'm glad that some of you are also old.

[LAUGHTER]

JAKE KNAPP: So my story takes place in the year 1986.

And it's actually a story about my wife

who was nine years old in 1986.

As was I, although I didn't know her at the time.

And like all nine year olds in the United States in 1986,

I don't know about Canada, but everyone wanted a Nintendo.

And this is what the Nintendo looked like.

It was a big box.

And everybody was so excited about it.

But it costs a lot of money.

So it cost $199, which if you adjust that for inflation it's

over $400.

It's a lot of money at any time if your nine years old.

Actually, Daniel, I don't know for you Canadians.

Hopefully this will help.

00:03:45,304 --> 00:03:47,470 DANIEL BURKA: I have to deal with this all the time.

Thanks.

JAKE KNAPP: This is actually how much

maple syrup you can buy for $200 in case you guys were curious.

And leaders is spelled the Canadian way.

Craftsmanship here.

So anyway, my wife is very industrious.

And she scrimped and saved.

She did chores around the neighborhood,

and she saved up her allowance.

And finally, finally she had $200.

She was ready to make the purchase.

And then right at the last minute she got cold feet.

She was like, oh my gosh, I saved up all this money,

I don't know if I should do this, I'm only nine years old.

I don't know if she thought that, but she wasn't sure.

And so she made this really unusual arrangement that for $4

she would rent a Nintendo from her neighbor.

And she'd have it all day Saturday, all day Sunday.

She could play it as much as she wanted, all the games, you

know, the laser gun, everything.

And I think that what my wife envisioned

was something like this.

So this is a photo from Nintendo on the box at the time.

And this is kind of like captures

the scene of excitement that everyone had about Nintendo.

If you look closely at these brothers

you'll notice that they don't even

seem to notice Super Mario Brothers is actually

a one player game.

But that's what it was like.

I mean, it was so great.

And so she pictured this, and she

pictured the family gathered, and everybody,

you know, watching her play.

And the reality was more like this.

And this is not a photo.

This is an artist's interpretation

that my wife was really excited about when she saw it.

But this is what it was like.

She's up till 3:00, 4:00 AM, you know, eyes bloodshot,

barely sleeping, playing Nintendo the entire time.

And by the end of the weekend when she gave the Nintendo back

she realized I cannot handle owning a Nintendo.

And she came to this realization after just $4

and 48 hours of her time.

This idea of renting before you buy we think also

applies to product development.

And that's the essence of what we're

going to talk to you about today.

DANIEL BURKA: So the way that we typically

see design and development done at startups

is that you come up with an idea, a hypothesis,

something that might be really great for your product.

And then you build the lightest weight version of it

that you can, you know a simple V1.

You really boil it down.

Launch it into the wild, measure the results,

learn from those results, and then iterate around the circle.

Also from our experience this is actually not a great way

to operate as a startup.

And what really happens in the real world is

you frequently are starting with a bad idea.

And that's fine.

I mean, that's the whole point of a hypothesis

is something you're not sure of that you want to test.

But then you spend a lot of time actually building out

that idea, and this invariably takes

much longer than you think it will.

You've now invested the time, and so you

feel like there's no going back.

Aw, we better launch this thing and see what happens.

And where you're expecting to have really nice statistics

and learn whether or not something works,

it's usually much muddier than you hope it will be.

And what's that quote?

There's lies, damn lies, and statistics.

And then when you're supposed to be iterating again,

you actually just move on to the next shiny idea.

And your products out in the while.

And it's gumming up the works.

You've got all this code now in your code base

that you no longer want.

It's really hard to go back at that point.

So we're trying to do at Google Ventures

is we're trying to shortcut that process.

Over the course of a week we ideate and flesh out an idea,

we prototype it, and then we test it.

And we call that a five day design sprint.

JAKE KNAPP: I want to tell you just a super fast bit more

about Google Ventures in case you're not familiar with it.

You probably have heard of Google.

If you haven't, you should totally check it out.

It's a create search engine.

But Google Ventures is actually a small, separate company.

So about 50, 60 employees.

And basically what happens is Google gives us money,

and we in turn invest it in startups.

So we've invested in 250 startups so far.

And as design partners Daniel, and I,

and the other three design partners on the team,

it's our job to help those companies make the best

products possible so they'll be successful.

And we've done this with countless different companies.

But the story that I want to tell you about today

is actually about a coffee company.

So Blue Bottle Coffee.

I'm not sure how many of you have heard about it.

Somebody.

So actually a coffee company, not just

a clever name for a startup.

But if you're not familiar, they have a number of shops

here in San Francisco, a bunch in New York City.

And if you were to go to the ferry building, which is not

far from here-- If you're from out of town

you should totally check it out.

There's a bunch of shops inside the ferry building for tourists

and commuters, and there's one in particular

that always has a long line kind of going down the hallway.

And it's not the store that sells only mushrooms.

It's actually Blue Bottle Coffee.

And here's the line.

And in fact, if you look closely at that line

you might recognize a familiar sort

of praying mantis style figure.

DANIEL BURKA: A praying mantis who

only apparently owns one shirt.

Nice.

JAKE KNAPP: That's my favorite shirt.

DANIEL BURKA: It looks good.

JAKE KNAPP: As I was saying before I was so rudely

interrupted, it's a fantastic cafe.

And they have this beautiful interior design

some wonderfully friendly, knowledgeable baristas,

and great coffee.

Their shops are very successful.

It's a successful business.

But they have a problem.

it's with their web store.

They felt like it could be a bigger part of their business,

and it wasn't living up to what they wanted.

So after we invested in them they came to our design team