For our theme, "Sustainable Living at Home," we want to focus on one of the most consumption-heavy periods in life: welcoming a first baby. For many new parents, the new roles of caregiver, teacher, and planner for a child's future creates anxieties about the little one’s wellbeing and development, which can lead to emotionally charged purchasing decisions that may not be in the best interests of the family or the planet. And as a baby quickly grows, so does the pile of stuff, some of which was essential, but quickly outgrown, and others of which turned out not to be as useful as the parents thought. The cycle of over-purchasing and discarding is stressful for families and harmful to the environment. 

New mothers and parents are seen as a key demographic for marketing strategies. The strategies consider the unique purchasing powers of mothers, while also understanding the parents’ unique needs and preferences. Emphasizing and even promising convenience, accessibility, and better parenting overall.

Most purchases happen during the second trimester, and parents express the abundance of information and products make it hard to decipher what is necessary and important. Shopping patterns significantly change right after the birth of the child, when parents are eager to solve issues while in desperate need for sleep and rest. 

London, being a melting pot, boasts significant diversity. First and second-generation immigrants hold strong cultural beliefs that influence their purchasing decisions for baby-related items.

For instance, the perception of second-hand clothing varies among cultures. While widely accepted in the US and the UK, it's looked down upon in Eastern cultures like Turkey and Cyprus. Hand-me-downs for baby equipment are popular universally, but individuals from places like India may view buying new products as a sign of effective parenting. 

We identified the following key insights that became the basis of our research: 

We initiated our investigation by mapping the existing system, continuously updating it throughout the research process. System mapping facilitated the identification of complex factors influencing parental concerns and purchasing behaviors, offering a comprehensive understanding of the issue. By employing color coding, we distinguished between positive, negative, and complex relationships among factors. 

During the creation of our systems map, we uncovered a secondary outcome - Identity Shift - influenced by factors affecting emotionally charged purchasing behavior and reciprocally influencing them. This insight, corroborated by other research sources, merited further exploration. 

Birthing Parent 

Raquel (She/Her) - 32 y’o 

An experience flow depicts consumption across different stages, rationale behind product needs, decision-making complexities, stakeholder interactions, and the parent's emotional journey. This facilitated the identification of key pain points and problem areas. 

Our hypotheses correspond to the needs and opportunities. We’ve used color coding to highlight the connections between our hypotheses, needs, and opportunities. 

We began ideation by gathering and writing our “How Might We?”  across three whiteboards. Then we set to work, brainstorming innovative ways to address this challenge from a variety of angles. Than explored a wide range of ideas using techniques such as mind mapping, the worst possible idea, "what if there were no barriers," Crazy 8s, and other similar methods. 

After ideation, we converged on a few key ideas. Now it was time to build out the concepts in a greater level of detail, compare, merge, and finally...vote! In our voting process, we inventoried and systematically considered a range of factors of importance, including alignment to each of our insights, each dimension of the brief, and being systemically informed (sustainable, long-term change over a quick fix).

Once we determined our direction, we discussed and reshaped until we had aligned on a concept for Little Hamlet that resonated with the entire team, and our core insights. Then it was time to see what our users thought. We took the concept ideas for Little Hamlet, along with our corresponding key insights, into co-design sessions. To best align to our participating mum’s schedules and constraints, we met mum’s 1-1, at a time and location of their choice, and engaged them in an insights validation and co-creation session, where we asked them to react to and engage first with our insights, and then with our ideas. During this process, we also asked them to contribute their additions, changes, and new ideas. We wanted to be sure we designed Little Hamlet with mum’s, not for them. 

We further developed our concept by creating both conceptual and visual representations of Little Hamlet to validate our service with mothers and other key stakeholders. This included designing wireframes for the Little Hamlet app and developing a set of user scenarios as prototypes. 

A service that fosters organic community by creating homes away from home for mums. At Little Hamlets, mums know baby will be safe while they connect with themselves and one another, do the things they love, and share products, resources, and experiences. 

To validate the Little Hamlet concept, we shared our prototypes with mothers, some of whom had participated in our research. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with many mothers agreeing that this service would alleviate their concerns about safety and accessibility. Additionally, they showed interest in the activities offered, appreciating the opportunity to be active without feeling guilty. 

Our revenue streams would mainly come from a certification set up of £150 for our go-to-market initiation, and £150 per year after that to be part of the Hamlet network.

In conjunction to that we would draw an activity posting fee of £10.

Businesses that are using the events regularly can purchase subscriptions for a set amount of postings per month. 

Three fundamental factors to our success as a business are:

• The ability to convert businesses into certified Hamlets and subscribers.

• Building connections between likeminded mums.

• Maintaining engagement and trust within communities of mums.

Our KPIs to monitor progress along these drivers are as follows:

• Number of businesses engaged, % of businesses engaged that certify, % of certified businesses that subscribe.

• Number of new relationships formed by users at 1 month, 6 month, and 1 year marks.

• Attendance to events, number of new app users, % of repeat app users e.g. % of users who engage with the app at least 1 per week.