QUICK SUMMARY
Carley Hart shares her journey of applying professional innovation methodologies from her work with deep tech startups at Cornell Tech to create her own children’s book business called Awesome Kids. She demonstrates how design thinking frameworks can be effectively used across different scales—from corporate innovation to personal entrepreneurship—by walking through her process of identifying problems, prototyping solutions, and validating market fit. Her story illustrates how innovation principles can be applied to create practical solutions for everyday problems, using her children’s book that helps parents get their kids to brush their teeth as a tangible example.
KEY QUOTES
- “I went from brainstorming, crossed that out to just problem seeking. And my goal was to just reframe my mindset… I’m gonna give myself three months, don’t do anything. Just search for problems and search for opportunities.”
- “Once it clicked, I couldn’t turn it off. It was almost like voices in my head. I was like, oh my God, I could fix that. I could fix that. I was just like an inventor inventing how to solve every problem I was seeing.”
- “This is different than product market fit… I moved from prototype and then that validation, it was kind of that data. So then I was like, okay, I think it is worth it to kind of move to the next stage.”
FULL SESSION SUMMARY
Professional Background in Innovation
Carley Hart began her career at Instructables, a platform at the forefront of the maker movement, where she created over 115 tutorials with 16 million page views. After Instructables was acquired by Autodesk, she pivoted to design thinking and strategy, obtaining an MBA in design thinking. Her career path included working at Business Models Inc. focusing on business model innovation, spending three years at Techstars helping corporations innovate like startups, and working at Verizon’s disability innovation accelerator. Currently, she works at Cornell Tech, Cornell University’s technology campus in Manhattan, where she helps PhDs commercialize their technologies through a program called Runway.
Innovation Methodologies
Hart discussed several innovation frameworks she uses professionally. She highlighted the basic design thinking framework of “what is, what if, what wows, and what works” as a methodology for problem-solving across various domains. At Business Models Inc., they used a similar framework but in an infinite loop where the point of view is constantly updated through understanding problems, ideating solutions, prototyping, and validating. She also mentioned her work with the National Science Foundation’s iCorps program, which helps researchers and technologists commercialize their innovations through customer discovery—a methodology developed by Steve Blank.
Personal Innovation Journey
Despite her professional success in innovation, Hart had an epiphany about applying these methodologies to her own life. With two young daughters (ages 2 and 4), she initially planned to start her own business when her younger daughter entered kindergarten. However, she realized she couldn’t wait five years and decided to begin her entrepreneurial journey immediately. Instead of using traditional time-constrained brainstorming sessions, she gave herself three months of “problem seeking” without trying to solve anything immediately. She filled an entire notebook with observations and opportunities, allowing ideas to percolate naturally.
From Problem to Solution
Hart used a design criteria canvas to evaluate her ideas based on personal requirements: low startup capital, quick production timeline, lifestyle business compatibility, physical product focus, ability to work with offshore talent, and no brick-and-mortar component. Her breakthrough came while trying to get her three-year-old daughter to brush her teeth—she discovered that singing “ah” sounds (initially from Led Zeppelin, then from Frozen) made the process much easier. To validate this solution, she quickly created a prototype—a simple book with a song, sticker chart, and mirror—and tested it with 25 families who had rated their children’s toothbrushing difficulty as 5 or higher on a 10-point scale. The results were overwhelmingly positive, with difficulty ratings dropping from an average of 5 to between 1 and 2.
Product Development and Market Validation
After validating the problem-solution fit, Hart moved to develop a proper product. She chose a book format because it aligned with her design criteria: low cost (under $10,000), quick to produce, built on existing manufacturing capabilities (no custom tooling required), and familiar to the target market (parents regularly buy books for children). She worked with illustrators, learned about publishing requirements, received free legal advice from Cornell’s entrepreneurship clinic regarding safety disclaimers (the book contains coin cell batteries), and created sticker charts to encourage both morning and evening brushing. The book includes a QR code that plays a song prompting children to open their mouths wide while brushing. Hart also sought validation from pediatric dentists, who confirmed the innovation of combining the “ah” sound with brushing techniques.
Current Status and Next Steps
At the time of the presentation, Hart had just received notification that 2,500 books had arrived at the Port of Los Angeles. She had already done some pre-selling and was moving into the product-market fit stage. She worked with Prototype Thinking Labs to test messaging for the book and conducted user tests with mock websites to see what resonated with potential customers. Hart mentioned she has “a million other ideas” for businesses she wants to start, indicating her entrepreneurial journey is just beginning.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Innovation methodologies can scale from corporate to personal projects – The same design thinking frameworks used for deep tech startups can be applied to solve everyday problems and create viable small businesses.
- Problem-seeking beats time-constrained brainstorming – Giving yourself extended time to observe and document problems without immediately trying to solve them leads to more authentic and effective innovation.
- Rapid prototyping and validation are critical – Testing hypotheses quickly with minimal investment (Hart’s initial pilot cost only $150) provides valuable data before committing significant resources to product development.
Delivery on Event Focus;
Aligning Innovation with Business Strategy
This session perfectly aligns with the event’s focus on connecting innovation with business strategy by demonstrating how structured innovation methodologies can be applied to create viable business opportunities. Hart shows how her professional expertise in helping deep tech startups commercialize their innovations directly informed her approach to creating her own business. Her systematic process—from problem identification to solution validation to product development—illustrates how innovation principles can be strategically applied to create market-ready products that solve real customer problems.
Delivery on Event Theme:
Harvesting Innovation and Sowing the Seeds of Future Growth
The session delivers on the theme of “harvesting innovation and sowing the seeds of future growth” by showing how innovation skills developed in one context (corporate and academic settings) can be harvested and applied to create new growth opportunities (a children’s book business). Hart’s journey represents both harvesting (leveraging her existing knowledge) and sowing (creating a new venture with growth potential). Her approach of continuous problem-seeking also embodies the concept of constantly planting seeds for future innovation.
Action Steps for Innovation Experts and Corporate Changemakers
- Implement problem-seeking practices – Move beyond time-constrained brainstorming sessions to create ongoing systems for identifying and documenting problems and opportunities.
- Develop personal design criteria – Create clear parameters for evaluating which innovation opportunities to pursue based on strategic goals, resources, and constraints.
- Embrace rapid, low-cost validation – Test hypotheses quickly with minimal viable prototypes before committing significant resources to development.
- Leverage existing infrastructure – Consider how innovations can build upon existing platforms or manufacturing capabilities rather than requiring entirely new systems.
- Seek cross-disciplinary applications – Look for opportunities to apply innovation methodologies from one domain (like deep tech) to seemingly unrelated areas (like children’s products).
- Create innovation pipelines – Establish clear processes for moving ideas from problem identification through validation to product development and market testing.