Overview
For this human-centered design project, our team partnered with the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center to explore how they might better support underserved and under-resourced entrepreneurs. The brief asked us to investigate how the Center could scale its impact from supporting 100,000 founders to 1,000,000 while helping reduce early founder failure rates. Instead of approaching the challenge only through business metrics, we focused on the human experience of being an early-stage founder. Our goal was to understand what founders emotionally, socially, and practically need in order to keep building through uncertainty.
TIME
4 Weeks
YEAR
2026
Teammates
Maroua Bezzaoui
Karen Barrera
Vivek Patel
We began by interviewing founders at different stages of their entrepreneurial journeys, including student founders, first-time founders, and entrepreneurs connected to programs like Nasdaq Milestone Circles. Through these conversations, we learned that early-stage founders often deal with loneliness, self-doubt, unclear direction, and the pressure to prove that their idea is worth pursuing. Many of the founders we spoke with were not only looking for money or technical help; they were looking for reassurance, community, and confidence. This research helped us move beyond the surface-level idea of “startup support” and toward a deeper understanding of what it feels like to build something with limited experience.
Empathize
Define
After collecting interview notes, quotes, and observations, we organized our findings through empathy maps, 2x2 matrices, and thematic clustering. A clear pattern emerged: young, inexperienced founders often interpret mistakes as personal failures rather than normal parts of the entrepreneurial process. Without previous success to rely on, each failed prototype, rejected idea, or slow moment can feel like evidence that they are not capable of becoming real founders. Our key insight was that founders need safe ways to hear, share, and reframe mistakes so failure feels less isolating and more like part of learning.
Ideate + Prototype
Based on our insight, we created three early prototypes that explored different ways founders could share mistakes, receive advice, and feel less alone. These prototypes tested whether founders would respond more openly to peer stories, anonymous reflections, or interactive advice-giving experiences. Instead of simply asking users if they liked the ideas, we observed how they reacted emotionally: whether they paused, laughed, opened up, reflected, or offered genuine advice. Through testing, we learned that founders were most comfortable being vulnerable when the experience felt private, low-pressure, and emotionally safe.
Final
Our final prototype was called Fess Up Your Mess Up, an experience where founders read a mistake written by another founder and respond through a private, pretend phone call. Think of it like the content you would see on @aview.fromabridge. The format allowed participants to give advice, show empathy, and reflect on failure without the pressure of judgment from sharing in real time with others. When we tested the prototype, founders reported feeling more confident, suggesting that giving advice can help people recognize their own resilience. Our final recommendation to Nasdaq was to scale this concept as a low-cost installation, event series, or digital archive that normalizes failure and helps early-stage founders keep going.