If you’ve got your ears peeled to innovation musings in Australia, you probably heard about a men only co-working space opening its doors recently.

While I’m not opposed to gender specific initiatives such as female-only gyms or single sex schools, I’m in favour of sustainable innovations that create value for society. A co-working space whose mission it is to harbour domestic violence perpetrators, regardless of gender-specificity, raises questions for all.

In a fast moving landscape where victory is reserved for the nimble and agile, it’s worth exploring how the concept of a ‘men only’ coworking space might have committed a number of cardinal sins when it comes to innovation and new product development.

Fail #1 – Jobs to Be Done

Harvard professor Theodore Levitt famously said, “people don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want to buy a quarter-inch hole.” This summarises Clayton Christensen’s Jobs to Be Done theory, which focuses on identifying deep customer needs rather than productisation and features. The founders at Nomadic Thinkers got it wrong by failing to uncover the underlying needs of their abusive colleague. They focused on the ‘effect’ (domestic violence conducted) as opposed to the deeper root cause of the physical abuse (e.g. drinking habits, aggression and controlling behaviours). Thus, focusing on the wrong problem led to an arguably sub-par solution (i.e. isolation, a gym and no girls allowed) rather than seeking professional advice and counselling to solve the root cause of the problem.

Lesson learnt: Uncover the true job to be done. To do this you might undertake root cause analysis and explore the Five Whys.

Fail #2 – Lack of Due Diligence

The issue of domestic violence is one that continues to receive widespread attention and is a national concern. That the two Brisbane entrepreneurs lacked the hard evidence attributing physical violence to depression, puts their reason for being on thin ice. Tackling the subject of domestic violence by making sweeping assumptions (gender isolation reduces domestic violence) and making ill-informed statements (physical abusers are all depressed) indicate a lack of robust research into their proposed solution. Thus the business was all too easily slammed by media outlets and Australia’s broader community.

Lesson learnt: Founder of Dell, Michael Dell once said “ideas are a commodity, execution of them is not.” Take the time to thoroughly explore the landscape and learn what you can from those who may have attempted the same idea before you.

Fail #3: Features versus Value

Any good product manager versed in Design Thinking will advise you to deliver a product or service with the fewest features but the most value. Rather than creating something new and unique, Nomadic Thinkers took the existing co-working value proposition and added some inconsequential (gym) and offensive (no women allowed) features. This lack of genuine differentiation failed to remedy the broader issue of men's’ health and domestic violence, that they alleged to be solving. Examples of real value that they instead could have offered might be subsidised counselling or, alcohol and drug support services.

Lesson learnt: Success is not adding a new feature, success is solving a customer need.

Fail #4: Hypothesis unknown

Before investing large amounts of time and money into an idea, it is a basic tenet of Lean Startup methodology to test the underlying assumptions and leaps of faith that exist around the idea. Disproven hypotheses identify weaknesses in an idea. Hypothesis testing is also critical to acquire ‘validated learnings’, which dictate whether to proceed with, fundamentally change or abandon an idea.

For example, Nomadic Thinkers’ founders who sought greater personal productivity could have tested whether their output increased as a result of working in an existing co-working space, rather than necessitating their own prejudiced version. Testing this basic hypothesis may have also cost them far less in time, money and public embarrassment.

Lesson learnt: Aim to get customer feedback as early as possible and learn as much as you can prior to launch.

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