case studies

“The Artian’s training provided me with the skill set to face the sales process in a way I would not have done before”

Context and Challenge

The Visa Everywhere Initiative is an open innovation program that helps startups unlock new opportunities. The program first launched in the U.S. in 2015 and has since expanded to every corner of the world, recruiting startups from over 100 countries. With the support of Finnovista, an organization empowering Latin American Fintech firms, Visa holds a yearly world-class program that provides startups’ CEOs and Founders with the tools to strengthen their projects. Certain market-disruptive Fintechs are selected for the yearly event, undertaking a week-long program in which they get the opportunity to meet corporate clients, investors, domain experts, amongst others, benefiting from the insights, support and empowerment provided.

Startups that make it to the yearly event are characterized by impressive technological sophistication, but they usually face three non-technical but relevant challenges: to incorporate non-engineering, transdisciplinary thinking in their projects, to develop the sharp critical thought necessary to achieve continuous improvement, and to find a space of exploration outside their usual routines and structures. For the 2018 edition, Finnovista invited The Artian team to run a workshop for the startups’ founders.

The Artian’s solution

To face these challenges, The Artian developed a three-phase training process tailored to ignite a mindset transformation in the startups’ CEO participating at the program’s final:

OBSERVATION SKILLS – WORKSHOP

Often, startups develop excellent products that don’t find customers. To help entrepreneurs truly understand their customers and to find new sources for innovation, we provided art-based training, highlighting the need for skills that are essential to foster creativity and empathize with customers: observation and listening skills.

QUESTIONING SKILLS – WORKSHOP

As a result of high involvement with their ideas, it is challenging for startups to deviate from the ways they do things and to pivot in new directions. To develop the critical thought necessary to achieve continuous improvement, we provided the founders with the skills to become better at questioning the fundamentals of their projects.

ENTREPRENEURIAL IMAGINATION – WORKSHOP

After you observe the world and question it, you need to offer alternatives and come up with ideas to challenge the way things are. Hence, we provided training to participants on how to nurture the skills to develop an imagination and ideation practice, nourishing their ability to generate ideas that are rooted in non-linear and non-technical thinking processes.

Results

Engineering-based companies found inspiration in the arts to foster creativity and innovation

The founder of VU, a Cybersecurity company based in Argentina, strengthened his belief about the need to question the linear and technical paths of thought that dominate engineering. For this reason, at the company’s yearly gathering, the Artian was invited to express to the employees the importance of developing an artistic mindset. Read their case studies.

Entrepreneurs found areas for improvement as a result of better questioning skills

One of the Initiative’s finalists offers a platform that allows communities to replace traditional ways of managing condominiums with the use of integrated and mobile software. After difficulties engaging customers, the questioning skills workshop led the founder to realize that standard customer engagement strategies were not useful for his business model, leading him to reformulate some of the fundamentals of his go-to-market strategy.

Finance managers found new spaces of exploration through contact with disruptive ideas

Managers from investment banking, wealth management firms and other financial institutions challenged their belief that it is not possible to fuse creative thinking and analytical prowess, leading them to engage in enriching conversations with The Artian’s team.