Starting a business without a clear plan is similar to trying to build a house without blueprints. You’ll likely waste money on resources you don’t need, miss critical elements, and end up with something that doesn’t work well. When these planning mistakes pile up, they often lead to business failure within the first few years.

Ever wondered why so many businesses fail in their first year? Often, it’s because they jumped straight to solutions without fully understanding the problems they were trying to solve. What if there were a simple framework to help you avoid this trap?

The Double Diamond Model gives you precisely that, a straightforward way to plan your business in four steps: Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver. It was developed by the British Design Council after studying how successful companies like Microsoft, Starbucks, Sony, and LEGO approach problem-solving and innovation. This double diamond design process has become the foundation of modern design thinking and problem-solving in businesses of all sizes.

Discover Phase

The Discover phase is all about opening your eyes and gathering information before making any decisions. This discovery phase is characterized by divergent thinking, which is expanding your search for ideas and information rather than narrowing it down.

In practice, this means:

• Talking to at least 10-15 potential customers about their needs and frustrations
• Visiting competitors to see what they offer and what they miss
• Reading industry reports and local market data
• Looking at online reviews of similar businesses to spot common complaints
• Checking zoning laws, licensing requirements, and other regulations in your area

For example, if you’re thinking about opening a coffee shop, don’t just assume you know what people want. Go out and ask them:

• Where do they currently buy coffee?
• What do they like and dislike about those places?
• What would make them switch to a new coffee shop?
• How much do they typically spend?
• What times of day do they buy coffee?

The answers might surprise you. Maybe people in your area don’t care about fancy espresso drinks but desperately want healthy food options with their coffee. Or perhaps they want a place with reliable Wi-Fi where they can work for hours.

Successful businesses like Starbucks understand this well. They have new team members work in their stores for a month before they start developing new products or services. This helps them truly understand customer needs before trying to solve problems.

Skip this phase, and you risk building a business based on assumptions rather than facts. Most new businesses fail because they create something people don’t actually want or need.

The iterative nature of the double diamond framework means you might need to return to this phase several times as you learn more about your market and refine your thinking.

Define Phase

After collecting all that information, the Define phase helps you make sense of it. This is where you use convergent thinking, or narrowing down possibilities to focus on specific opportunities.

Practical steps include:

• Creating basic charts or graphs to visualize your research findings
• Listing the top 3-5 problems or needs you discovered
• Ranking these problems based on how common they are and how much people care about solving them
• Writing a clear one-sentence statement of the specific problem your business will solve

For your coffee shop example, after talking to locals, you might discover:

• There’s nowhere to get good coffee after 4 pm in your town
• Local professionals need meeting spaces they can reserve
• Students want affordable study spaces with late hours

Your business opportunity might become clear: “Create a coffee shop with extended hours that offers affordable meeting spaces for professionals and students.”

Be brutally honest during this phase. If your research shows your town already has five excellent coffee shops serving your target customers, you might need to change your idea or find a unique angle.

The Define phase ends with a clear statement that guides everything else you do. Write it down and keep it visible as you move forward.

This phase is critical to the design process model because it bridges the gap between understanding the problem and creating solutions. A common mistake at this stage is jumping straight to getting approval for your idea without thoroughly filtering through your research. Take your time here because focusing on irrelevant data increases your chance of failure.

Develop Phase

With your defined opportunity in hand, the Develop phase lets you get creative again. During this development phase, you return to divergent thinking and generating multiple potential solutions to your defined problem.

Practical actions include:

• Creating at least 3-5 different business concepts that could address your opportunity
• Building simple financial projections for each concept
• Developing basic prototypes or mockups to show potential customers
• Creating a pricing strategy
• Mapping out potential locations or digital platforms for your business

For your coffee shop with extended hours and meeting spaces, you might:

• Create simple floor plans showing different layouts
• Make sample menus with pricing for coffee and food items
• Develop different pricing models for the meeting spaces (hourly vs. membership)
• Build a basic spreadsheet showing startup costs and projected revenue
• Take photos of potential locations and show them to your potential customers

The key is to create multiple options and test them. Don’t fall in love with your first idea. Get feedback from real potential customers on each concept:

• Would they use this service?
• How much would they pay?
• How often would they visit?
• What would make them choose your business over alternatives?

This phase often requires bringing in different perspectives. If you’re planning to open a physical store, talk to someone who understands retail operations. If you’re launching a product, consult with someone familiar with manufacturing. The British Design Council study found that bringing different expertise together speeds up problem-solving and helps avoid costly mistakes down the road.

Each round of feedback helps you refine your concept until you have something that’s truly viable. This approach helps you avoid investing all your resources in an untested business idea.

The best companies embrace the iterative nature of this process, making small improvements with each cycle rather than trying to get everything perfect the first time.

Deliver Phase

The final phase of the Double Diamond Model is Deliver, where convergent thinking comes into play again. Here, you refine your chosen solution and prepare it for launch.

In this phase, you:

• Test your potential solution with a small group of real customers
• Work out any operational issues
• Finalize your business model and pricing
• Create a launch plan
• Set up systems to gather feedback once you’re open

For your coffee shop, this might mean:

• Running a pop-up coffee shop for a weekend to test your concept
• Finalizing your menu and pricing
• Securing your location and necessary permits
• Setting up accounting and inventory systems
• Creating marketing materials and a social media presence

The Deliver phase doesn’t mean everything is set in stone. The double diamond framework encourages ongoing testing and refinement. Many businesses use techniques borrowed from UX design (user experience design) to continuously improve their products and services based on customer feedback.

Next Steps

The Double Diamond Model transforms business planning from guesswork into a structured process. By exploring problems before developing solutions, you avoid the costly mistake of building something nobody wants. The model isn’t linear, and successful entrepreneurs often move back and forth between phases as they learn more.

To apply this approach effectively, start with one business challenge. Document what you learn in each phase, involve potential customers throughout the process, and be ready to change direction based on what you discover. The final stage involves launching your business and establishing feedback loops for continuous improvement. Remember that your work doesn’t end at launch. The most successful businesses are those that listen to customers and evolve over time.