Quicksand adopted a qualitative approach to understanding the lives of India’s emerging ‘Aspirational Households’, aiming to capture the essence of who they are, what drives their ambitions, and the resourcefulness they bring to realising their dreams. Using a mix of rich media narratives (video and photography), design probes (such as money maps, aspirational journeys, and service safaris), and a variety of visual artefacts (including user archetypes, journey maps, and ecosystem visualisations), we worked to shape the rich narrative of the Entrepreneurial Household. The data and stories gathered uncover a spectrum of dreams and ambitions that shape these households' vision for the future and were translated to diverse storytelling formats, including 17 user profile films that highlight what sets this segment apart.
Aspire India
Client
- Elevar Equity
Sector
- Venture Capital
Services
- Design Research
- Storytelling
A Thick-Media Approach to Research
Quicksand began by conducting a Narrative Building Workshop with Elevar Equity on the ‘Aspirational Household in India’, which helped identify the need for a multi-pronged approach in branding, economic analysis, and storytelling to attract substantial capital investment into this segment.
Aspirational Households, as defined by the client, are characterised by their ability to generate multiple income streams and rely on a combination of formal and informal borrowing. Leveraging Quicksand’s expertise in design research and storytelling, our study aimed to document the stories of these entrepreneurial households to offer a rich, detailed depiction of who they are. The research methodology incorporated ethnographic inquiries such as shadowing participants in their daily routines, conducting in-depth interviews, and using participatory methods like visual sketching and mapping.
Rich media storytelling was employed to provide the client and stakeholders with a humanised, nuanced understanding of the Entrepreneurial Household, delivering an emotionally engaging experience that highlights the cultural context, aspirations, and economic potential of this segment. The qualitative research, conducted with participants across diverse geographies in India, underscored both the diversity within the segment of Entrepreneurial Households and the supportive ecosystem that shapes their everyday lives, including service providers, key influencers, and their communities.
Rather than offering a statistical representation of the entire segment, the research was designed to create an illustrative profile that communicates what makes this group unique.
Methodology and Process
The study was conducted across five diverse locations: Najibabad, the 'Gateway of the Himalayas' in Uttar Pradesh; Nanjangud, the spiritual centre known as 'Dakshina Kashi' in Karnataka; Chikodi, part of the entrepreneurial surge in Karnataka's Belgaum district; Rohtak, an emerging industrial hub in Haryana; and Bengaluru, the 'Silicon Valley of India’. With guidance from the Elevar team, Quicksand carefully selected these locations to ensure a broad representation of different contexts, languages, geographies, and the urban-rural spectrum.
We employed a blend of design research and ethnographic methods to deeply understand user behaviour and motivations. Our team conducted in-depth interviews with selected family units over two to three days. This extended engagement allowed us to build rapport, observe their daily lives, and document their experiences at home and work. While our primary focus was the main wage earner, we also explored contributions from other family members, including financial support, caregiving, and assistance with household businesses. The discussion guide aimed to uncover intrinsic motivations, value systems, and decision-making processes that distinguish entrepreneurial households. Beyond capturing entrepreneurial behaviours, we observed how these families work, care for their loved ones, and spend their time, noting routines, non-negotiables, and cherished aspects of their lives.
Through design thinking tools like money maps and expense wheels, we were also able to go beyond understanding the entrepreneurial behaviours of our subjects, to also factor in their financial health and priorities. Getting respondents to interact with these tools helped us understand patterns in how they allocate their income, and go about decision-making in terms of the larger collective pool of family earnings. These tools also worked well as probes to get subjects to reflect on their behaviours, and help back some of their claims or speak more confidently to certain points they had already articulated.
Human-centred Stories to Support Big Data and Insights
To truly relay the grit, hustle, and indomitable optimism that shines through this segment of Aspirational Households in India, it was established from the inception that there is a need to hear people's stories, directly from them. Through our films and rich-media profiles, we were trying to support big data with human stories — in addition to the data points and insights from the report, we wanted the households' collective gumption to do the talking.