Innovation Within- Onboarding Guide

Getting Started with Innovation Within

When you first log in to Innovation Within, your home screen guides you through the customer discovery process step by step.

You’ll see four structured steps:

Build Your Canvas
Create Interview Templates
Connect Calendar & Meeting Assistant
Interview Your Customers

These steps are presented as interactive cards that help you set up your workflow in the correct order.

At the beginning, these appear as empty-state setup cards, designed to guide you through what to do next. As you complete each step, the cards transform into live data widgets. Instead of instructions, they begin showing your actual progress — such as your Canvas status, interview templates, upcoming meetings, and insight activity.

Over time, your home screen shifts from a setup checklist into a real-time dashboard that reflects your discovery work.

How the Workflow Is Structured

The steps are designed to build on each other.

Your Canvas defines what you want to test
Your Interview Templates are generated from those hypotheses
Your Interviews gather real-world evidence
Your Insights connect that evidence back to your assumptions

Following this sequence ensures that each step has a clear purpose and builds on the previous one.

While you can technically move between steps freely, starting with the Canvas and progressing in order will give you the most structured and effective results.

What This Platform Is

Innovation Within is a structured system for conducting disciplined customer discovery.

It helps you:

Make your assumptions explicit
Design interviews intentionally
Capture conversations accurately
Extract evidence systematically
Track how evidence informs your thinking

Customer discovery is not about pitching your idea.

It is about testing the claims your idea depends on.

The Core Logic

Everything in the platform follows a simple chain:

A problem exists.
Solving it creates value.
That value matters to specific people.
Interviews generate evidence.
Evidence informs hypotheses.
Humans decide what holds and what changes.

The system makes this reasoning visible and traceable.

Step 1: Build Your Canvas

Open your Canvas and switch to the Skinny View.

Focus first on three sections:

Problem
Value Propositions
Customer Segments

Problem

Add multiple problem hypotheses.

Each problem hypothesis should:

Describe an observable condition in the real world.
Avoid solution language.
Be clear enough to explore through conversation.

Ask yourself:

Could someone reasonably disagree with this?
Could I gather evidence about this in an interview?

Value Propositions

For each problem hypothesis, write one or more value proposition hypotheses.

These describe the value delivered to the customer when the problem is solved.

Focus on outcomes, not features.

Ask:

What improves?
What becomes easier, faster, safer, or more effective?
Why does that change matter?

Customer Segments

Identify who specifically experiences the problem.

Be precise.

Instead of:

“Students”

Write:

“First-generation engineering students at large public universities.”

Specificity improves interview quality.

→Link: “Canvas Overview”

Step 2: Design Interview Templates

Interviews are structured conversations.

Create an interview template for each relevant customer segment.

Strong interview questions:

Are open-ended, inviting participants to tell their story.
Explore past behavior
Avoid leading language
Avoid explaining your solution too early
Encourage specific examples

After drafting your template, ask:

Which hypothesis is this question exploring?

If the connection is unclear, refine the question.

→Link: “How to Create Interview Templates”

Step 3: Prepare and Capture Interviews

Before conducting interviews:

Connect your Google or Outlook calendar (read-only access).

Choose how interviews will be recorded:
- Use the meeting assistant, or
- Use Zoom cloud recording.

You can configure the system to:

Join specific meetings
Join all meetings with a web conference link
Join meetings that contain specific keywords

When scheduling an interview:

Create the interview in the platform.
Enter the interviewee’s name.
Select the appropriate interview template.

This ensures:

Questions appear automatically in your notes.
You can check them off during the interview.
Notes and transcript remain attached.

If the interview was not created ahead of time, you can still select the template when opening it.

→Link: “How to Connect Calendar and Configure Meeting Assistant”

Step 4: Extract Insights

After each interview:

Review your notes and transcript.
Identify meaningful statements.
Create insights.

An insight begins with specific evidence.

To create one:

Select text from your notes or transcript.
The Insights panel activates.
Link the insight to one or more hypotheses.
Indicate whether it supports or does not support the hypothesis.
Add a brief comment if helpful.
Tag themes.
Assign priority.
Save.

This separates observation from interpretation.

→ Link:”What Is an Insight and Why It Matters"

Step 5: Review Evidence at the Hypothesis Level

Each hypothesis shows how many insights are linked to it.

Click the indicator to review:

All related insights
Supporting or non-supporting evidence
Quotes and comments
Audio playback
Source interview

After reviewing all linked evidence, you may:

Validate the hypothesis
Invalidate it
Leave it undecided

The system organizes the evidence.

You make the decision.

→ Link: “How to Review Linked Insights and Validate Hypotheses”

Review Insights Across Interviews

Use the Insights View to:

Sort insights
Search by tags
Filter by priority
Compare across interviews

Patterns emerge through accumulation.

Avoid drawing conclusions from a single conversation.

Program-Based Setup (If Applicable)

If you are part of a program (such as I-Corps, an accelerator, or a university cohort), some parts of your environment may already be configured for you by your program admin.

This can include:

Canvas Format

Your Canvas format is selected at the program level and defines how your assumptions are structured.

Common formats include:

Lean Canvas (problem–solution focused, common for startups)
Business Model Canvas (broader business structure)
Mission Model Canvas (for government or nonprofit programs)
Custom formats designed specifically for your program

You won’t need to choose this yourself — it is pre-configured for your cohort.

Team Visibility Settings

Your program may control whether teams can see each other’s work.

Visibility can be:

On → All teams can view each other’s Canvas, insights, and progress
Off → Full privacy between teams

Most academic and cohort-based programs enable visibility to encourage learning from peer teams.

If you’re unsure, check with your program director.

Interview Expectations or Quotas

Some programs set expectations for how many interviews your team should complete.

If a quota is set:

Your progress is tracked automatically
Instructors can see your team’s progress on a cohort dashboard
This is typically shown as a progress indicator or completion bar

These expectations are designed to ensure consistent engagement with customer discovery throughout the program

Best Practices

Record every interview.
Extract insights soon after conversations.
Link evidence carefully.
Review hypotheses regularly.
Look for patterns before making decisions.

What Success Looks Like

You should be able to:

Trace each conclusion back to specific evidence.
Show how your thinking evolved.
Explain why a hypothesis was validated or revised.

If you can do that, you are conducting disciplined customer discovery.