What is pretotyping?
Between abstract ideas and “proper prototypes” there are pretotypes.
They can be created as quickly and as cheaply as you can to decide that you are building the right thing before you build it.
But what most of the failing startups doing is, they invest too much too soon to develop a first version of the product with too many features, too much functionality and too much “polish.”
So, Fake It Before You Make It to test the demand. It should be something we don’t mind abandoning.
The Law of Failure
- Most new creation will fail – even if they are flawlessly executed.
- Playing this game with failure only makes sense if the bait we use is something cheap and inexpensive, a pretotype that we put together in a few hours or days and at a minimal cost.
You can do 3 things with an idea:
- Do nothing with it - dangerous.
- Go for it (productype it) - very dangerous, how most new products are developed and is the reason why most failures are slow, painful and expensive failure.
- Give it a try (pretotype it)
Thought-land
It is a fictional place inhabited by two strange entities that float around and interact with each other: ideas and opinions.
More precisely: unrealised ideas and opinions about those unrealised ideas.
Thought-land is good for ideas, but dangerous for creators, innovators, entrepreneurs and authors.
All its are born as ideas, but if we don’t quickly shift from thinking and talking to putting something concrete in front of our potential users and customers, our its run the real risk of spending too much time in a very dangerous place I call Thought-land.
An Idea can be false positive - it cause us to prematurely overcommit and go for it. false negative - it scare us into abandoning our idea and do nothing with it.
Why is it important?
Ideas are fuzzy and abstract; opinions are subjective and even more abstract; when you combine the two you get a big fuzzy ball of abstractions and opinions.
Furthermore, most prototypes are built to answer 3 questions such as,
“Can we build it?”
“Will it work as expected?”
”Will it work at all?”
“How small/big can we make it?”
“How much would it cost to produce?”
“How long will the batteries last?”
“How will people use it?”
“What will people use it for?”
Instead, focus on questions such as “**Should we build it at all?” or “If we build it, will people buy it and use it?” “Is this the right thing to build?”
Unless you can answer the latter questions positively, the former questions are of little importance.
What are some of the pretotyping techniques that you can use?
The Mechanical Turk – Replace complex and expensive computers or machines with human beings.
The Pinocchio – Build a non-functional, “lifeless”, version of the product.
The Minimum Viable Product (or Stripped Tease) – Create a functional version of it, but stripped down to its most basic functionality.
The Provincial – Before launching world-wide, run a test on a very small sample.
The Fake Door – Create a fake “entry” for a product that doesn’t yet exist in any form.
The Pretend-to-Own – Before investing in buying whatever you need for your it, rent or borrow it first.
The Re-label – Put a different label on an existing product that looks like the product you want to create.
What data to collect and what metrics to use with your pretotypes?
we can collect actual usage and market data.
Initial Level of Interest (ILI)
ILI = number of actions taken / number of opportunities for action offered
Ongoing Level of Interest (OLI)
It is represented by a time-based graph (or table) rather than by a single number. Each point/entry in the graph/table represents the level of interest at a particular date
The Seven Strategies:
- Obey the Law of Market Failure.
- Make sure you are building The Right It.
- Don’t get lost in Thought-land.
- Trust only in Your Own DAta (YODA).
- Pretotype It.
- Say it with numbers.
- Think global, test local.