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The Service Startup
A practical guide to integrate Design Thinking and Lean Startup in the service era.
“Pinheiro will inspire you to think differently about business, design, education, and — perhaps most importantly — the way you work every day.”
- Kerry Bodine, co-author of Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business
“In this book, Tenny offers some extremely valid and hard-hitting criticism regarding the ideals surrounding the dictate of building a Minimum Viable Product. Agreed on many fronts but I found his reinvention of these principles when applied to the service industry to be extremely insightful. The concept of a Minimum Valuable Service is unique, new and sets goals intended to deliver maximum value with measurable results. This is a must read for anyone in the global innovation economy.”
- Rick Rasmussen, NestGSV. International Business development.
This book is a practical guide that explores how startup entrepreneurs and business leaders, who hold no Design degrees, can integrate Service Design into their development cycles in order to create sustainable, desirable and profitable new services.
In the first part, Tenny explores the reasons why startups need to move away from the “make and sell” industrial logic we’ve been exploiting over the last century. To take its place he proposes a new service oriented mindset that carries the idea of "learn, use and remember” users' journeys. He also discusses the challenges our industrial society is facing and how the combination of design with a service oriented mentality can be key to help new and existent businesses make this shift.
In the second part, he will take you on a journey through the MVS - Minimum Valuable Service - model. This model can seamlessly integrate Service Design into the Lean Startup or any Agile development cycle. It adds the human values needed to foster service innovations within the Lean’s scientific approach. In this part of the book you will learn tools, methods and practices that will help you get your hands dirty with design.
At some point every adventure requires a great guide, and this journey into the heart of the new is led impeccably by Tenny Pinheiro. Slyly sidestepping the pitfalls of the Lean Startup approach, he skillfully navigates us through to a deeper understanding of the forces shaping the evolving service economy. By trusting the wisdom of the many to help design the next phase of business, his approach taps into an inexhaustible source of creativity and innovation. The Service Startup is a trusty roadmap that you will long keep by your side. As Tenny might suggest: learn it, use it, and remember it.
- Jamer Hunt, Parsons The New School for Design. Director for the graduate Program in Transdisciplinary Design.
“I'll admit it: I enjoy seeing someone who knows their stuff re-assemble and improve on the work of an adjacent profession. Tenny calls out what's lacking in the Lean Startup approach, in the most thorough and insightful ways. In the spirit of iteration, he's taken an existing approach and improved on it. If only all criticism were this good.
I enjoyed his delightfully nuanced views on the world of services — how they're perceived, experienced, and remembered — as well as his historical perspectives on the worlds of design, business and marketing. Opinionated but also well-informed, this is a pragmatic, human-centric take on designing and delivering services that I'd recommend to anyone whose work affects other people.
- Chad Thornton, Experience Designer, Airbnb”
“Pinheiro will inspire you to think differently about business, design, education, and — perhaps most importantly — the way you work every day.”
- Kerry Bodine, co-author of Outside In: The Power of Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business
“In this book, Tenny offers some extremely valid and hard-hitting criticism regarding the ideals surrounding the dictate of building a Minimum Viable Product. Agreed on many fronts but I found his reinvention of these principles when applied to the service industry to be extremely insightful. The concept of a Minimum Valuable Service is unique, new and sets goals intended to deliver maximum value with measurable results. This is a must read for anyone in the global innovation economy.”
- Rick Rasmussen, NestGSV. International Business development.
This book is a practical guide that explores how startup entrepreneurs and business leaders, who hold no Design degrees, can integrate Service Design into their development cycles in order to create sustainable, desirable and profitable new services.
In the first part, Tenny explores the reasons why startups need to move away from the “make and sell” industrial logic we’ve been exploiting over the last century. To take its place he proposes a new service oriented mindset that carries the idea of "learn, use and remember” users' journeys. He also discusses the challenges our industrial society is facing and how the combination of design with a service oriented mentality can be key to help new and existent businesses make this shift.
In the second part, he will take you on a journey through the MVS - Minimum Valuable Service - model. This model can seamlessly integrate Service Design into the Lean Startup or any Agile development cycle. It adds the human values needed to foster service innovations within the Lean’s scientific approach. In this part of the book you will learn tools, methods and practices that will help you get your hands dirty with design.
At some point every adventure requires a great guide, and this journey into the heart of the new is led impeccably by Tenny Pinheiro. Slyly sidestepping the pitfalls of the Lean Startup approach, he skillfully navigates us through to a deeper understanding of the forces shaping the evolving service economy. By trusting the wisdom of the many to help design the next phase of business, his approach taps into an inexhaustible source of creativity and innovation. The Service Startup is a trusty roadmap that you will long keep by your side. As Tenny might suggest: learn it, use it, and remember it.
- Jamer Hunt, Parsons The New School for Design. Director for the graduate Program in Transdisciplinary Design.
“I'll admit it: I enjoy seeing someone who knows their stuff re-assemble and improve on the work of an adjacent profession. Tenny calls out what's lacking in the Lean Startup approach, in the most thorough and insightful ways. In the spirit of iteration, he's taken an existing approach and improved on it. If only all criticism were this good.
I enjoyed his delightfully nuanced views on the world of services — how they're perceived, experienced, and remembered — as well as his historical perspectives on the worlds of design, business and marketing. Opinionated but also well-informed, this is a pragmatic, human-centric take on designing and delivering services that I'd recommend to anyone whose work affects other people.
- Chad Thornton, Experience Designer, Airbnb”
- GenresDesignNonfictionBusiness
220 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 20, 2014
61 people are currently reading
316 people want to read
About the author
Tennyson Pinheiro
4 books9 followersHi there. I am the founder and Ceo of Livework in Brazil, the pioneer global Service Design agency, and the creator of Eise - The School for Service Innovation. An unprecedented entrepreneurship acceleration program through Design.
I'm also the author of two books on Design Thinking, the latest is entitled The Service Startup :: Design gets Lean, and explores the intersection between design and entrepreneurship. Speaking about writing I'm the resident service design columnist at Core77 where I pen the Design @ Your Service column. Just google "Tenny Core77" to spread my design thoughts all over your browser.
I have always been an entrepreneur and started my first business when I was 13 years old. Since then, have bootstrapped several business initiatives and served as a mentor to dozen others.
As a designer, I have been working for over a decade on service innovation projects for fortune 500 companies, NGOs and governmental agencies in every sector of the economy, across the world.
Personally I am a lover of cognitive sciences and a certified Hypnotherapist by the NGH, the most prestigious clinical hypnosis organization in the world. And, if you think this is weird, wait until I tell you I hold an expert level certificate on Facial Micro-Expression recognition, according to the Paul Ekman institute.
Over the last decade I took a leading role on spreading the word on Service Design, which is design applied to the creation of service experiences, after all, we live in a service economy, right? And since the establishment of Eise, I took upon myself the mission of helping startups integrate design thinking into their making. Hence my new book.
I'm also the author of two books on Design Thinking, the latest is entitled The Service Startup :: Design gets Lean, and explores the intersection between design and entrepreneurship. Speaking about writing I'm the resident service design columnist at Core77 where I pen the Design @ Your Service column. Just google "Tenny Core77" to spread my design thoughts all over your browser.
I have always been an entrepreneur and started my first business when I was 13 years old. Since then, have bootstrapped several business initiatives and served as a mentor to dozen others.
As a designer, I have been working for over a decade on service innovation projects for fortune 500 companies, NGOs and governmental agencies in every sector of the economy, across the world.
Personally I am a lover of cognitive sciences and a certified Hypnotherapist by the NGH, the most prestigious clinical hypnosis organization in the world. And, if you think this is weird, wait until I tell you I hold an expert level certificate on Facial Micro-Expression recognition, according to the Paul Ekman institute.
Over the last decade I took a leading role on spreading the word on Service Design, which is design applied to the creation of service experiences, after all, we live in a service economy, right? And since the establishment of Eise, I took upon myself the mission of helping startups integrate design thinking into their making. Hence my new book.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 17, 2015
O Tenny Pinheiro traz de forma bem clara e empolgante uma nova abordagem para construção de novos produtos ou serviços. No lugar de construir algo impulsionado pela tecnologia (fazer para vender) é preferível e mais adequado começar puxado pelas necessidades e dores que o cliente tenha manifestado.
May 15, 2019
Neste livro o autor resgata valores importantes e originais do design e os aplica num processo chamado Minimum Valuable Service (MVS) que ele mesmo criou e usa em suas empresas.
Interessante as explicações sobre as limitações do modelo MVP de Eric Ries e sobre a má interpretação do design thinking por parte do grande público.
A visão de que 'tudo é serviço' e 'produtos são apenas avatares de serviços' é extremamente inteligente e nos faz questionar a antiga (mas atual) forma de pensamento da maioria das empresas onde 'tudo é produto' que precisar ser 'prodizido e vendido' em larga escala, sem se importar se o cliente percebe algum valor nesse processo.
Interessante as explicações sobre as limitações do modelo MVP de Eric Ries e sobre a má interpretação do design thinking por parte do grande público.
A visão de que 'tudo é serviço' e 'produtos são apenas avatares de serviços' é extremamente inteligente e nos faz questionar a antiga (mas atual) forma de pensamento da maioria das empresas onde 'tudo é produto' que precisar ser 'prodizido e vendido' em larga escala, sem se importar se o cliente percebe algum valor nesse processo.
August 8, 2014
This is a very good book about how to integrate Design Thinking and Lean Startup in the service eraI.
The only problem for me about it is Part One. It's too long and basically is focusing on showing why Lean Startup alone will not be able to help so much. Part Two is really the nice part where we can see the process, tools and concepts on how to apply the MVS model.
The only problem for me about it is Part One. It's too long and basically is focusing on showing why Lean Startup alone will not be able to help so much. Part Two is really the nice part where we can see the process, tools and concepts on how to apply the MVS model.
August 18, 2017
O livro é importante pois ilumina uma das partes mais obscuras do processo de ideação e descobrimento das necessidades dos clientes.
O autor apoia boa parte de suas teses em falhas do processo do Startup Enxuta, o que no meu entendimento, passou do ponto causando um certo estranhamento sua crítica a algo que tem guiado o desenvolvimento de negocios mais promissores nos últimos anos.
Ainda sim, é um material rico e que adiciona passos importantes no desenvolvimento de serviços/produtos melhores e mais efetivos aos clientes.
O autor apoia boa parte de suas teses em falhas do processo do Startup Enxuta, o que no meu entendimento, passou do ponto causando um certo estranhamento sua crítica a algo que tem guiado o desenvolvimento de negocios mais promissores nos últimos anos.
Ainda sim, é um material rico e que adiciona passos importantes no desenvolvimento de serviços/produtos melhores e mais efetivos aos clientes.
September 3, 2017
A great and provocative view on service design. The book makes the case for creating Minimal Valuable Services (MVSs) over Minimal Viable Products (MVPs), and how thinking in terms of service offerings, over traditional "make and sell" business models, is a better strategy for a startup. Additionally, the book provides a model, tools and templates for doing service design sprints, the precursor to building and going to market. Humanize and then Crystalize.
August 3, 2018
He spent most of the time defining service design and discussing the history of service design, then explaining how not to do service design, and how it's similar but different from other approaches...a minority of the book was about how to do it well. Plus, it was pretty academic (dry) in tone. Not wrong, just not useful or engaging.
July 22, 2018
Nice book to add some design techniques to the Lean Startup approach. Sometimes it has a very naive understanding (that's on purpose, I believe) of the Build-Measure-Learn cycle. In the end of the day, it's and OK reading.
January 14, 2023
Maravilloso. Lo tiene todo y lo cuenta genial
September 20, 2014
The underlying message of this book is that the lean startup process literally applied can be too scientific and lack empathy for the customer. Pinheiro then offers a bunch of techniques for generating that empathy. There are also some useful frameworks for use in service design, of which my favourite is thinking about the customer journey in three phases: Learn, Use, Remember.
Would have been five stars were it more accessible.
Would have been five stars were it more accessible.
September 4, 2015
Although obvious sometimes, Tenny's book has a lot great insights about human and service oriented design. It's MVP approach (Minimum Valuable Product instead of Minimum Viable Product) can a make a difference while prototyping solutions. It's an easy and pleasure reading.
January 18, 2017
A solid foundation for design driven business cultures
Presents a solid foundation for design thinking in the business space. Somehow felt inspired after reading. Does a great job of presenting theory and practical insights as well!
Presents a solid foundation for design thinking in the business space. Somehow felt inspired after reading. Does a great job of presenting theory and practical insights as well!
October 27, 2016
Good book.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews