What could a holistically designed cocktail startup service look like?

What is self-care? Self-care is the willingness to maintain or restore oneself and one's well-being. Self-care can be health-related or psychological, it can increase one's sense of worth, expand one's knowledge, or represent well-deserved time off. Self-care becomes more and more important in times of digital and physical overstimulation - in a time when we are constantly bombarded by opinions, influences and manipulative approaches. For us as designers the preservation of mental health and the focus on the human being itself becomes more and more important and should be in harmony with the ecological context.


This approach of well-being and personal as well as community time-out was the basis of our project. With our start-up concept "Entdeck:Bar" we would like to address the well-being and the associated self-care of our customers and give them and their partners, friends or simply themselves an incentive to put their own well-being in the foreground. Our drink box start-up gives them the chance to learn more about their own taste, about creativity that needs to be explored and about quality time, which we transport through our claim and our values. We accompany our customers on a journey - a journey of taste.

Fancy ideas have to be stronger today than just redoing what's been done before. There are many different approaches to disruption, as we have also focused on for this project. Our main focus was on highlighting personal well-being, increasing creativity, discovering new tastes and doing so in accordance with principles of circular economy and delivery. The following steps of our project implementation explain how this works.

Gathering, testing and narrowing ideas
Great projects are based on good ideas. In our case, this phase proceeded in several stages, during which various concepts were tested. Through targeted brainstoming methods, megatrends as well as the trend maps of the "Berlin Ideas Lab", we were able to further sharpen the idea of a cocktail box startup. But what makes the USP of our service concept? This first had to be worked out. For this purpose, a comprehensive benchmark analysis was conducted, and the uniqueness was refined through a job-to-be-done sprint.

The USP of Entdeck-Bar
In the case of our brand, we differentiate ourselves from our competitors through the character of discovery. While the benchmarks mentioned offer prefabricated and high-quality recipes and cocktail boxes, we extend this claim by the factor of the individual freedom of the user and his possibility to discover the boxes with all senses himself and to get to know new taste nuances.

In concrete terms, this means that the factors of experience, exploration and the resulting learning experience set our brand apart from the existing competition.

Furthermore, in the factor of quality as well as exclusivity (related to the ingredients), we are in line with the claim of other companies in this industry.

How did we come to this?
The development of the unique selling proposition was based on the analysis of the target group and the market. In addition to the JTBD method, Gains, Pains were aligned with the product and the customers in a Value Proposition Canvas. With the help of personas we were able to design different journey maps, which we assigned to the three defined target groups of "connoisseurs", "frequent customers" and "gift-givers" in order to work out different needs. The results were summarized and evaluated in a survey. The 47 respondents confirmed and refuted a number of assumptions, which enabled us to determine specific aspects such as the price range, subscription models or the relevance of surprise boxes through concrete user surveys. Finally, these parts were united within the Service Blueprint to put together a holistic brand strategy.

From concept to product design.
‍Based on the well thought-out concept and with a focus on the brand message to be communicated, the design part was started. For this, the "journey of taste" was used as a basic motif for the information architecture. In the visual design, the journey played a role mainly as an interactive component. Mood boards and brainstorming sessions on names, colors and elements were used to define and refine the first design elements. First drafts and wireframes as well as a selected font choice finally came together in the final poduct. Special attention was paid to the scalability of the logo for very small but also large fields of application, contrast ratios and a unique and independent design. Entdeck-Bar combines classical elements, for example in the form of a serif font, textures or certain shapes with an elegant and high-quality impression, which should underline exclusivity and quality.

The most important screens were designed for the prototype of the webshop. Among others, the landing page, the account, the shopping cart and product overview pages as well as individual product pages. Individual relevant concepts to be highlighted are the direct applicability of filters for the use of non-alcoholic products, the integration of self-made high-quality product photographs and, for example, user tests for testing the usability of the application. In addition, the cocktail boxes were not only designed digitally but also worked out in real in several cycles and suitable materials were chosen. Flyers and other print media, a banderole, stickers and, for example, special labels for the ingredients in the box round off the design concept.

With Entdeck-Bar, a holistically conceived service model was created, which communicates the services in an appealing, intuitive and curiosity-raising manner on the basis of a clear USP. Entdeck-Bar convinced not only in theory but also in practical tests and a pitch presentation. However, due to time and personal reasons, the approach could not be continued.

The final start-up idea is based on the implementation of a shippable box, which contains various ingredients for a cocktail or drink. Based on the previous analysis, our start-up offers drink boxes with experimental added value - consisting of an alcoholic or non-alcoholic base, main components for mixing, refinements as well as botanicals and self-prepared toppings. For this, we refer to theme-specific aspects, which we then implement with the help of unusual but adapted ingredients for the target group.

Our project implements several box models, which change every 3 months (or depending on the business situation). With local, national and international basic ingredients and specialties, we stand out from the competition and give the target group a first incentive. The further added value consists of the experimentation, the discovery character of our box, with the help of which our users can get to know their own taste anew and consequently develop a personal learning experience from it.

For this purpose, our customers will mix the cocktails/drinks themselves, refine them with the ingredients, produce their own ingredients under guidance and evaluate them. We offer them the appropriate amount for 6 glasses. Depending on the preparation, different experiences and tastes take place, which underline the uniqueness of our concept.

The experience and discovery is the main value.

Furthermore, it is planned to cooperate with well-known personalities from the industry in order to be able to create high-caliber and exclusive content and themes, or to have these personalities create boxes for us. In the final product, the learning experience should also represent part of the added value and explicit content should be offered for this in print and on the web.

A circular Service Approach
Subsequently, we would like to include a return option in our concept in cooperation with parcel services. Customers can return the used boxes to us with the aid of a return label. The materials contained in the boxes, such as bottles or packaging materials, can then be recycled and reused, thus saving natural resources. As an incentive, we offer customers a discount on their next purchase. At the same time, we save money by reusing products that have already been purchased. However, this approach is not aimed at increasing profits, but rather at making the service as a whole more sustainable and turning the box into a circular good.