The science on teen sleep is clear, most adolescents aren’t getting enough, and the consequences are serious: impacts on mental health, physical health, safety, and academic performance. Clinically validated interventions exist that can help, but there are few trained providers to deliver them, and most families may not ever access them.
Dr. Emily Law has spent her career on this problem. As a pediatric psychologist, tenured professor, and vice chair for research in the Department of Pediatrics at KU Medical Center, she developed and tested clinically validated approaches and had a clear vision for getting them into the hands of families at scale.
She thought she knew the customer…I-Corps changed that.
“Before the I-Corps program, I believed that I was the expert, that I knew the problem, and that I had the solution and that the masses would just want it,” Dr. Law said. “Through I-Corps I learned all of that was wrong.”
The program pushed her to interrogate every assumption about who her customer was, what they thought the problem was, and what kinds of solutions they would be willing to try. The medical model she had spent her career working within, she realized, wasn’t the right frame for building something commercially viable. “I had to start over,” she said. “And that’s what I-Corps allowed me to do.”
One of the most transformative tools was a short book assigned during the program: Talking to Humans by Giff Constable. Emily liked it so much she bought copies for everyone on her team. The book reshaped how she approached customer discovery interviews; starting broad, letting conversations go where they went, and resisting the pull to guide customers toward validating what she already believed.
By the time the cohort ended, the team had completed more than 60 customer discovery interviews.
As for what’s next, Dr. Law and her team have a goal of reaching 100 customer discovery interviews by end of summer. When asked how she’d describe I-Corps to a fellow researcher, her answer was immediate: “Get ready to feel like you and your idea are going to be turned upside down and inside out — and that you will come out better and stronger and ready for the next step.”