you find words like innovation and
entrepreneurship I would have told you
you find them in places like tech blogs
coders and programmers innovate and
given that I’m not one of those that
probably means that I’m going to be
using other people’s amazing ideas in
the coming decades but I’m unlikely to
make my own small dent in the universe
well that’s not true it’s not true for
me and it’s not true for you all of us
use hundreds maybe even thousands of non
digital non-coated products every day
I’m talking about tights floors doors
walls paper knives plates mugs all of
this sort of things and from time to
time they cause problems and we know
that because we complain about them and
if we have a complaint about something
that might just mean that that thing
needs rethinking now I not only think
that we users can think spot problems
and think of ideas to solve them I
actually think we are best placed to do
this because we use them every single
day and to come up with those ideas and
you might think yes I can come up with
an idea everyone can come up with an
idea about how exactly does one person
go and make that thing happen on their
own well you don’t have to do it on your
own you as a user can go and do it with
many other users and I believe in this
process so much I called my one-person
startup after it
that’s revolution in user thinking or
riot for short and I want to show you
how well I’ll take you right back to the
beginning where my user Eureka moment
happened and it was on a very glamorous
place on a Friday night after about
about a five-hour commute from my office
job in reading with a very heavy
backpack on a train to get WIC and then
off on a budget airline to Berlin I
hadn’t had dinner
I was very irritable and so with
everyone else and say when we were
trying to get off our budget airline
there was that sort of that that that
that sort of hurl of people trying to
get out of the door and what happened
was I was sort of shoved a little bit
and I ended up leaning into the backpack
of the guy in front of me and his whole
body tensed up and he took his backpack
off and he unzipped that great little
pocket at the back where you keep all
your best stuff and he took out his
phone and he put it in his pocket he
took out his passport he put that in his
pocket he zipped it back up again put it
on his back and glared at me as though
to say don’t steal my phone and my
passport like I said I hadn’t had dinner
so I thought do you really think I’m
gonna steal your phone and your but I
couldn’t really get much further because
then there was this other sort of wave
of humans from the back of the plane and
suddenly the guy behind me was right on
top of my backpack and I thought in fact
I had exactly the same response I
thought oh my zips done up where’s my
phone where are my keys with my where
where is everything and who is this
person I immediately thought the worst
of him sorry man but then I managed to
catch myself for a moment and I thought
wait a second the guy in front of me
thinks I’m trying to get into his
backpack but not only am I not trying to
get into his backpack I’m actually
thinking about the guy behind me
possibly getting into my backpack so if
I take this one step further possibly
the guy behind me is not trying to get
into my backpack he’s possibly thinking
about the guy behind him trying to get
in his backpack and I suddenly had this
moment where I saw this almost cartoon
like queue of all people in the world’s
in busy cities where their backpacks on
all thinking that sort of possibly bad
things are happening all the time on
their commutes or even on holiday we all
meant to be relaxing and that there’s a
lot of hostility around anyway I then
thought I wish my backpack were the
other way around no zips on the outside
all against your back so when you’re
travelling around you really don’t have
any need to hate anyone at all I thought
great I’m gonna buy myself one of these
dinner did a Google funny I don’t really
know what to call it
okay backpack
no zips and nothing came up and I
thought I suppose technically it does
have it so just not in the back fine
okay so backpack no zips outside and
then nothing came off and I thought okay
well arguably that is actually the back
so or this is the outside as well so
okay fine I’ll go from a different
direction and backpack safe and what
came up was a backpack and and it had a
net around it and a padlock through the
net and this wasn’t what I was looking
for but like I said I kind of went back
and and sort of doing my commute and
going from reading into London and then
it and going through lots of train
stations and airports you see so many
backpacks and I found myself searching
for my perfect backpack and wondering
where it was and why my googling skills
weren’t good enough to find it anyway I
didn’t even realize I’d had an idea at
this point but over the course of about
a year this thing that was deep inside
my mind actually managed to sort of come
out in words for the first time and at
breakfast one morning with my friends I
managed to get it out and I said I’ve
got I think all rucksacks are the wrong
and they said what are you talking about
and I said look if I’m wearing a normal
rucksack the person behind me can get
into it more easily than I can isn’t
that weird I think like it makes this
person totally stressed out and they’re
sort of being micro hostile towards all
of the people around them and we don’t
like I’m not talking about when you’re
climbing up a mountain this is in a city
where we’re necessarily surrounded by
hundreds maybe even thousands of people
that we don’t know but they might not be
doing anything bad to us but we think
they might be anyway so anyway I’ve got
this idea what happens if you turn the
bag around no zips here.all against your
back this person’s happy these people
are happy what do you think they said
that’s a great idea why did you do it
do it I haven’t okay job in reading I
was you know a war suit they gave me a
I managed to get over that actually and
all of the self-doubt that came along
with a user and non-experts
having an idea and in March 2014 I left
my job with my sketches of my backpack
my backwards backpack under my arm and
the very next day I started prototyping
with a small prototyping company in the
UK called d2m innovation in Cheltenham
and I had this really clear idea of how
this was all going to be and yet every
single time I went there I there were
these unanswerable questions about this
thing I thought wow if I’m ever going to
finish this I really need some I need
some data I need to know what people are
doing with their backpack so that I know
what I do but maybe it isn’t what
everyone else does so I thought fine
back to Google I need a backpack
industry report or something like this
and the only thing I could find was a
massively expensive super high level
like industry report about figures from
the last few years this is not what I
needed I needed answers to real
questions so I thought right I’m just
gonna I’m just gonna ask my friends so I
went onto surveymonkey.com a totally
free service to use and I just asked the
questions I needed answers to do you
wear a backpack to work do you carry a
laptop with you when you wear it what
size is that laptop and what else do you
have in your riot in your eye then
finished my survey and I shared it
amongst my friends on Facebook and on
Twitter and on LinkedIn and said hi I’m
sort of doing a thing I can’t really
tell you what it is but I’m trying to
make the world a better place related to
backpacks so if you could just take my 1
to 2 minute survey that would be really
great and could you also share it with
other people who commute or travel in
cities that would be great thank you my
first survey about 70 people took part
my second survey about 3
100 people took part my third survey
nearly a thousand people took part so
this meant as I was completing my
prototype not only did I know it
actually works the backpack the
backwards backpack actually functions
which is what a prototype is there to do
it’s there to confirm your design users
use their thinking and powered all the
features on them so this wasn’t just a
thing for me it was a thing for all of
the city travelers who had helped to use
it to create it and that gave me huge
confidence to know that I based the
design bits on the things that people
really need so I’ve got a prototype it
works
it’s got user thinking in it brilliant
the next step is really tricky for every
single company how do you fund your
first production run with no money I
could have gone to a bank and said hi
I’d really like sixty thousand pounds to
do this thing that I’m really sure I
could do I’ve just never done it before
and if they’d said yes I would have been
standing there on the first viable day
of my business with sixty thousand
pounds worth of debt and no customers
and that didn’t really appeal for some
reason and so I could have also gone to
an investor but there was something
about that it just felt wrong because I
thought I needed to learn how to do this
not really learn not really be
influenced by someone else who had
already done it in a different way so
I’m a backpack user I’ve had this idea
I’ve gone to users who then helped me to
actually complete the prototype so my
feeling was that I had to go to users
direct to get this done and so I went to
crowdfunding platform Kickstarter with a
video and a few photos my prototype and
said hello internet I think there’s a
fundamental flaw with backpack design
today we live in an increasingly urban
world and I think this the current
design is stressing us all out here’s my
solution it is the riot bag riot stands
for revolution in user thinking the riot
bag is revolved by 180 degrees around
the user when the user uses the riot bag
they their thinking changes the people
around them are no longer are no longer
potential thieves they’re no longer
these these these aggressors that just
fellow travelers who are also trying to
get somewhere this is the riot bag this
is me I’ve got 30 days to run to erase
its money my friends and family did
support my Kickstarter campaign but the
rest of the thousand and ninety-one
people who supported the riot bag on
Kickstarter did not know me personally I
didn’t know them they looked at this
thing and said that is solving a problem
that I recognized and at the end of the
Kickstarter campaign it was successfully
funded I took that money I flew straight
to China to meet my wonderful production
manager Daisy who is she has in fact
this Factory has made every single riot
bag to date I spent a very long time
there every year and they are absolutely
brilliant and within 12 months of me
leaving my job with my sketches under my
arm
there were riot bag users all over the
world we can do this
we are users we don’t have to be experts
in this stuff we can spot problems and
they are mouthed in the in the in the
form of complaints with users listen to
your complaints go a step further and
think about can you think of a solution
to that thing can you think of a really
simple thing which lets you get back on
with what you were doing before and if
you think of something don’t let
anything get in the way of you actually
doing it if you really want to I promise
you is one person you if you have
actually solved a problem that other
people have
millions of people possibly they will
help you to make it and that is what
Kickstarter about is about that’s what
the revolution and user thinking is
about so go and try it that’s all today [Applause]