
Lightening Challenge
24 Hour Case Competition
My New Year’s Resolution for 2018 was to try to fail more to learn more. Thus, when I saw that the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship was holding a business consulting competition, I immediately knew I wanted to participate. As a designer, I was completely out of my element and I loved it. Much to my surprise, I was able to use design thinking to consult the company and in the end, win the competition!
The competition asked my team and I to take on a Harvard Business case study, determine where the business at hand failed, and ideate a solution that could have potentially saved them.
Overview
Time:
24 hours
Business women who want to feel empowered by their clothes and no longer reduced to a number/their size
User:
My Role:
Collaborate through design thinking to create a product that can help MiddleTree advance their mission
What We
Created:
Redesigned business model and service
User Interviews, Persona Development, Low-Fidelity Prototyping, User Testing,
Strategies
Used:
Understanding hidden true user needs through theories on priming and conditioning
Brain stuff:
Quincy: A Failed Clothing Company
The business we were presented was Quincy, which promised perfectly fit women’s business attire.
Quincy’s Business Model:

Build 80% of item
Complete remaining 20% using customer’s inputted bra size
Provide perfect fit suit
Quincy failed because customers kept returning items, claiming they still did not fit right around their bust
Strange Choices
As I read into their business model, I found that Quincy had held some strange misunderstandings about their customers.

They were basing their “perfect fit” formula but 80% of women wear the wrong bra size

Why wouldn’t they just purchase a competitor’s suit and pay $40 more for personal tailoring
Their suits were priced at $160 which similar to their competitors.

Why wouldn’t a customer purchase a brand name suit at a similar price
Brand name suits empowers women with social capital and gives them a community
Getting A Deeper Understanding of the Problem
We conducted user interviews around campus to understand what really appeals to women. Here are highlights from the conversations we had with five female career minded students.

“Going and getting my bra size measured is just this awful and really invasive thing”
“I hate that at some stores I am a 4 and others I am 6, like what does that even mean?”


It is not about the fit, it is about the feel
The interviews revealed that there is a need to revitalize women’s shopping experience when purchasing business attire.
Yet, the solution is not to simply change the measurement system. We discovered that women for years have felt defined by numbers. The measurement system made them feel terrible about their bodies and as a result, they have been conditioned to resent the current sizing system. Quincy does not need to throw away standardized sizing as a whole, but can instead provide a new take on sizing guides that is uplighting rather than traumatizing.
A Suit that fits a Woman’s Real Needs
Here is the new product and associated service, my team and I designed
Step One: Perfect Fit Band is Mailed to Home
User creates a profile on Quincy.com and receives perfect fit bands in the mail

Star and Strength rather than Numbers
User creates a profile on Quincy.com and receives perfect fit bands in the mail

Step Two: User inputs information into their personal online profile
Instead of their previous model, Quincy will now create 10 standard sizes. Women will input their information and algorithm will determine which one of the ten sizes they are a best fit for.
If a user is between sizes, the website will inform her and offer personalized tailoring for purchase to get her a better fit.
We carefully chose the diction used during this process, since our goal was to inject positivity into what has become a emotionally painful experience for women.

