My partner is a tennis player and coach, so I've always been surrounded by tennis coaches. For this project, I decided to interview tennis coach friends who use Intuit QuickBooks to track their finances. I observed them at their tennis courts, where they spend most of their working time. Additionally, I aimed to focus on a real-world problem and gain a deeper understanding of the people around me.

I chose two tennis coaches, Wendell and Mike, from different age groups who use QuickBooks. During user interviews, I discovered that QuickBooks Solopreneur is an updated product of Self-Employed. The Self-Employed version still exists for those who prefer not to switch to Solopreneur.

Wendell's goal is to know accurate information on expense deductibles ahead of time, enabling him to determine exact tax estimates. Mike's goal is to become financially savvy so he can avoid hiring expensive accountants and spending time researching online.

The user interviews and personas provided valuable insights that guided me to the next step.

Based on the insights from user interviews and personas, I formulated an assumption using 'If', 'Therefore' and 'But' statements.

To validate the assumption, I conducted secondary research online and discovered numerous pain points of self-employed tennis coaches seeking advice regarding their tax-related finances.

During my research, I also identified additional pain points experienced by QuickBooks customers related to bookkeeping errors. Users are struggling with transaction entries due to a lack of bookkeeping knowledge, which reinforced my belief in the importance of empowering users with effective software solutions.

The 'How might we' statement helped me focus on understanding the user and their problems, leading to ideating solutions.

Before ideating solutions, the hypothesis statement helped me concentrate on specific users, their needs, and potential general solutions.

Identified three opportunities within a given timeframe and narrowed them down to a feature for QB Solopreneur: a link to fun, relevant, and reliable Micro-Lessons curated specifically for self-employed tennis coaches.

To implement this opportunity for new users, we can collect data through onboarding questions, trial period surveys, and collaboration with financial experts to design initial lesson plans.

To implement this opportunity for existing users, we can leverage MLA by clustering and analyzing users with similar financial behaviors. This involves analyzing educational materials and recommending relevant lessons.

To validate my research, I also met with AI engineers to ensure feasibility.

To map out the original idea of a personal trainer, we can create a familiar, trustworthy, and experienced friend through curated lessons based on collected data. Additionally, a personal trainer who is fun and supportive can be achieved through gamified, bite-sized lessons, which are proven to be an effective learning method.