The Wildcard Co-lab was an innovation-support initiative I developed through multiple engagements. This particular case study focuses on a virtual workshop delivered for the venture studio, ThinkTiger, and one their startup clients that found themselves ‘stuck’ in their project.

Background

Early-stage startups are built for speed, but speed without alignment can quickly become expensive.

Unclear on product direction, struggling to prioritise opportunities, and burning valuable time, ThinkTiger needed a way to quickly restore clarity and momentum for one of their clients building an innovative product set for launch.

I designed and facilitated an intensive full-day Wildcard Colab “Kickstarter” workshop that helped the team align on priorities, generate new strategic options, and commit to a focused path forward.

The result was a new product strategy and action plan, renewed team confidence, and an estimated three months of runway preserved.

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The Challenge

This startup had reached a common but dangerous stage of growth.

Its founders and stakeholders had strong ideas, but competing perspectives were slowing decision-making. Product priorities had become fragmented, the roadmap lacked focus, and progress had stalled.

For a venture-backed startup, indecision carries a real cost. Every week spent circling the problem meant lost momentum, delayed delivery, and continued burn. ThinkTiger needed more than advice and needed the team to think differently together.

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My Role

I partnered with the ThinkTiger team to lead the design and facilitation of a rapid innovation intervention tailored specifically to the startup’s situation. This was less about teaching frameworks and more about building capability in real time.

My responsibilities included:

• Diagnosing the team’s alignment challenges
• Designing a focused learning and decision-making experience
• Facilitating the workshop alongside venture studio stakeholders
• Guiding the team from ambiguity to commitment

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Design Approach

Below is a live Miro example of the workshop experience design to explore
(note: this is not the final version of the workshop design used

The workshop was built around experiential learning and collaborative problem-solving. I designed a virtual environment where the team could surface assumptions, challenge existing thinking, and collectively identify the most promising path forward in a structured and progressive fashion.

The session intentionally balanced divergence and convergence:

• Broad exploration of opportunities
• Structured prioritisation of options
• Collective alignment on strategic direction
• Immediate translation into actionable next steps

Participants learned by doing, debating, and deciding.

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In Action

The half-day sprint was designed for pace, energy, and momentum.

Activities helped the team:

• Clarify the core problem
• Reframe market opportunities
• Generate alternative strategic directions
• Evaluate options against business constraints
• Align around a single roadmap

A critical part of the facilitation was creating enough structure to drive decisions, while leaving enough space for genuine discovery.

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Outcomes

By the end of the session, the startup had:

• Defined a clear strategic pivot
• Established a new product roadmap
• Re-aligned founders and stakeholders
• Accelerated decision-making
• Avoided an estimated three months of unproductive burn

Most importantly, the team left with greater confidence in their ability to navigate uncertainty collaboratively.

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Reflection

This engagement reinforced a lesson I return to often:

💡 Teams rarely fail because they lack intelligence. More often, they lack shared understanding.

💡 Well-designed learning experiences can create that understanding remarkably quickly.

In just half a day, the startup moved from uncertainty and misalignment to clarity, commitment, and action—a reminder that the right intervention delivered at the right moment can change a team’s trajectory entirely.