Design Thinking in Practice: How the Framework Shaped My Decisions While Building Evynx from scratch

During a recent session I was delivering on Design Thinking, a corporate leader asked me: “you have built Evynx from scratch, how did you use your own Design Thinking framework?” For years, I have practised Design Thinking. While building Evynx, I wasn’t consciously asking myself which stage of the framework I was in. I was trying to understand a problem, speaking with people, exploring possibilities, building, and changing things when I learned something new.

Looking back today, I can see how naturally this journey falls into my Design Thinking framework - Growth Diamond Model.

Perhaps that is what years of practice do. A way of working gradually becomes a way of thinking. You begin using it without needing to name it.

Building Evynx has given me my most personal understanding of that.

A question I carried through years of travel

I have been travelling across India for around 16 years now, often solo. Its diversity and beauty have never stopped surprising me. Yet, again and again, I found remarkable places, unfamiliar routes, and local experiences that were surprisingly difficult to discover.

I had mixed feelings about that. As a traveller, I appreciated places that were less crowded. At the same time, I could see opportunities for thoughtful tourism to support local livelihoods and help domestic and international travellers experience more of India.

A question stayed with me: “How could we make the richness of local India easier to discover, while helping the people who make those experiences possible?”

Empathize: opening the question

The first movement in my Growth Diamond framework is divergence. Empathizing meant opening up my understanding: listening to travellers, speaking with operators, studying platforms, examining how enquiries moved, and exploring the economics behind the experience.

My own travel history gave me a starting point. Other people helped me see beyond it. Travellers faced questions about discovery, suitability, and trust. Operators faced difficulties with visibility, digital presence, marketing, and access to customers.

Studying how trips were sold helped me understand the layers that could sit between a traveller and a local operator. Across those handoffs, commitments, information, and decision-making authority could become disconnected.

I began to see a connection: people looking for meaningful and trustworthy local travel and people capable of delivering it were struggling to find each other. At this stage, the work was to stay curious long enough for the problem to become clearer.

Define: choosing where to act

Exploration creates possibilities. Definition is the convergent movement: making sense of what has emerged and deciding which problem to take forward.

I evaluated the opportunity, business case, development costs, and possible ways to create value. Gradually, the question became more focused:

“How might we help travellers discover and book local travel offerings more directly, while helping operators reach them and keeping commitments closer to delivery?”

My first idea was a directory-style platform where operators could list and sell packages.

It was a starting hypothesis, supported by enough conviction to act. Development costs were a significant barrier, so I decided to build it myself. That made it possible to begin - and brought me closer to the consequences of every product choice. I now had a focused problem and a way to explore the solution - both open to being challenged by what came next.

Ideate: allowing the solution to expand

Ideate opened the possibilities again. Discussions with operators and travellers exposed questions that my initial idea had left unanswered.

A directory addressed visibility. But how would a traveller decide whom to trust?

The idea evolved towards a marketplace.

As I researched, spoke with people, and built the interfaces, I also began distinguishing different travel needs.

Some people wanted a familiar itinerary. Others wanted to explore an unfamiliar route. Others needed a knowledgeable guide for a particular experience.

That thinking led to three offering types:

• Journeys, for curated exploration through less familiar places and routes.
• Tours, for established destinations and familiar package formats.
• Guided Experiences, for travel needs centred on local knowledge and guided support.

I wanted these possibilities to sit together, so a traveller could find different kinds of travel as their needs changed.

This was also an early lesson in iteration. Designing the solution helped expose questions about the problem. New understanding then changed the design.

The arrows between the Problem space and Solution Space (as demonstrated in Growth Diamond Model) were becoming part of my daily work.

Develop (Design-Build-Test): making choices real

Development brought convergence: selecting, building, testing, and refining the possibilities worth pursuing.

Alongside my job, I built functional prototypes for operators, customers, and administration, then integrated them.

The work extended beyond the screens. I was thinking through the marketplace strategy, customer journeys, operational workflows, brand, company setup, and commercial foundations.

Each perspective raised questions for the others. A simple customer interaction could require a much more considered process behind it. An operator feature could reveal an internal responsibility that also needed to be designed.

By the time I moved full-time into Evynx, I had a functional prototype and a more concrete way to explain the idea. Until then, I had been building Evynx alongside my role at Amazon.

I prepared to take it into the field in May’26.

The conversations that changed the business

During a month of field research, I met operators, spoke with potential customers, and discussed the concept with institutions and incubation centres.

I went with something people could see and respond to. I sought out people with relevant experience because there were questions I could not answer alone. Those conversations revealed that I had underestimated how unorganised the market was. I had understood that operators needed help reaching customers. The field research revealed that the support needed went much deeper. An operator could know a destination, plan a route, and deliver a trip, yet need help turning that knowledge into a structured offering that a customer could understand and book.

There were questions about what to sell, which customers to target, how to customise packages, how to communicate value, and how to achieve better price realisation.

Providing a place to list packages would leave many of those needs unresolved.

That realisation changed Evynx business model. The model became a managed marketplace: helping curate and publish packages, verify operators, coordinate bookings, and develop the capabilities needed to market and sell effectively.

More fundamentally, I began thinking differently about the operator - The operator was also my customer.

Their ability to manage and grow their business needed to be part of the value Evynx created.

That understanding shaped Evynx for Business and the tools to support their operations. It also changed the relationship I wanted to build - from treating operators as vendors to working with them as partners.

I was now designing for two connected customers: the traveller and the operator.

Returning to the problem after building the solution

The research took me from Solution Space back into Problem Space. It changed my understanding, which changed the model, which then changed the solution. I had a functional prototype. I had invested months in development. Yet the conversations showed that my understanding was incomplete.

It is easy to agree with iteration in principle. It asks more of you when the work being questioned is your own.

This is where the framework’s arrows became especially meaningful to me. You move forward when you have sufficient confidence. When new evidence calls you back to an earlier space, you return and recalibrate.

Implement: opening the work to the world

In the Growth Diamond Model, Implement opens the work outward again - a divergent movement into different people, contexts, and real-world experiences.

I made website available for discovery and operator onboarding on 28th Aug. It was a first phase of Implementation – putting the first version of product out into the world. The product feedback began shaping the next round of development.

Travellers and operators brought perspectives that were difficult to anticipate from inside the build. Their responses informed the interfaces, capabilities, and commercial preparation.

Solution Space and Market Space were already overlapping. Subsequently, the work expanded from package publishing and pre-booking journeys into post-booking service delivery, support, commercials, taxation, and internal operations. Each introduced further questions about how the marketplace would function in practice.

Today (as of 15-Nov’26), Evynx has the foundations of a three-sided platform: a customer experience, an operator console, and an internal operations system.

The foundation is in place. The next test is creating value through actual bookings, working relationships, and experiences delivered.

Will travellers find the offerings relevant? Will operators find the support useful? Will the experience match the promise? Can the business create lasting value for both?

I am stepping into the next phase of implementation with hope, commitment, and curiosity.

Some answers will ask me to improve the solution. Others may take me back to the problem.

I have to be ready for both.

For anyone holding an idea

You may be waiting for your idea to become clearer before you begin.

Some clarity comes from thinking. Much of mine came from doing something that others could respond to.

A conversation helped me frame a question. A prototype made an assumption visible. Field research changed the model. Development exposed operational needs.

Each step created something to learn from.

Start with a problem you care enough to investigate. Give your thinking a tangible form. Seek people who understand what you do not. Let what you learn influence your next decision.

You can remain deeply committed to the purpose while allowing the solution to evolve.

That is how Evynx grew beyond the idea I started with.