Business Model Innovation
How does a beautiful historic estate attract its next generation of customers?
Filoli is a historic estate and formal garden in Woodside, California. They were concerned about their aging customer base and needed help with understanding their current customers to uncover ways to attract and retain their next generation of customers.
Role: customer development researcher, design strategist, lead business model innovation report writer & editor
Team: Justin Brown, Naomi Kieser, Megan Moyer, Michael O'Hagan, Chris Young
Using the Business Model Canvas (BMC) as a visual tool, we plotted out Filoli's business model based on what we'd learned from staff and customer interviews. This allowed us to easily confirm our understanding of the business model with Filoli's leadership team. Once we got things right, we were able to use the BMC as a tool to help us reimagine what Filoli's business could evolve into.
After hearing what customers had to say about their experiences at Filoli, we visualized their current experience in a journey map to show where changes needed to be made to improve customer experience.
We visited Gamble Garden, Hakone Gardens, and Villa Montalvo to understand the customer experience at Filoli's local competitors. This allowed us to see where Filoli currently fits in the market and what it needs to do to attract new visitors.
Our final deliverables to Filoli included a 44-page business report and a 20-minute presentation, though it's easy to get lost in the details. To get to the heart of our main recommendations on what new customers want, we made a two-minute video to tell the story in an emotionally compelling way.
In January 2015, Filoli's Executive Director sent a newsletter to 10,000 members which highlighted the work we did that contributed to Filoli's new strategic plan.
