As product managers, we’re all too familiar with the age-old struggle of shipping products that fail to resonate with users. Despite our best efforts in market research, user interviews, and rigorous planning, it’s not uncommon for products to fall flat once they’re released into the wild. Enter pretotyping, a powerful technique that aims to validate product ideas before investing substantial time and resources into building them. Coined by Alberto Savoia, Google’s former Director of Engineering and Innovation Agitator, pretotyping is a way to test product assumptions quickly and cheaply, allowing teams to make informed decisions about which ideas are worth pursuing further.
In this post, we’ll explore the concept of pretotyping, its benefits, and how you can leverage it to de-risk your product development efforts.
What is Pretotyping?
At its core, pretotyping is about creating a simulated experience of your product idea to gauge demand and gather feedback from real users. It’s a way to test the waters before diving headfirst into the deep end of product development.
Pretotyping can take many forms, ranging from low-fidelity mockups and landing pages to concierge services and even Wizard of Oz prototypes. The key is to find the leanest, most cost-effective way to put your product idea in front of potential users and observe their reactions.
Unlike traditional prototyping, which often involves creating functional but limited versions of a product, pretotyping is focused on validating the core assumptions and value proposition behind an idea. It’s a way to separate the wheat from the chaff before investing significant resources into building something that may ultimately fail.
The Benefits of Pretotyping
Pretotyping offers a slew of benefits for product teams, including:
- Validating Assumptions: By putting your product idea in front of real users, you can validate (or invalidate) your assumptions about the problem you’re trying to solve, the target market, and the features that matter most.
- Saving Time and Money: Building full-fledged products is time-consuming and expensive. Pretotyping allows you to test ideas quickly and cheaply, potentially saving your organization from costly mistakes.
- Gathering Valuable Feedback: Pretotypes provide a unique opportunity to gather direct feedback from users, which can inform and refine your product roadmap.
- Building Emotional Connections: Involving users early in the process through pretotyping can help build emotional connections and a sense of ownership, increasing the likelihood of adoption and advocacy.
- Fostering Innovation: By embracing a culture of experimentation and rapid iteration, pretotyping can foster an environment that encourages innovation and creativity.
Types of Pretotypes
Pretotypes come in many shapes and sizes, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Here are some common types to consider:
- Landing Pages: Creating a simple landing page can help gauge interest in a product idea by tracking visits, sign-ups, and engagement metrics.
- Concierge Services: Offer a manual, high-touch version of your proposed product or service, and observe how users interact with it.
- Wizard of Oz Prototypes: Build a non-functional prototype that simulates the desired user experience, with a human “wizard” working behind the scenes to make it feel real.
- Crowdsourcing: Leverage crowdsourcing platforms to gather feedback, validate assumptions, and even build functional prototypes on a shoestring budget.
- Kickstarter Campaigns: Launch a crowdfunding campaign to gauge interest, gather feedback, and potentially secure funding for your product idea.
- Minimum Viable Products (MVPs): While not strictly a pretotype, MVPs can be used to validate product ideas by releasing a stripped-down version of your product to a limited audience.
Pretotyping in Action
To better illustrate the power of pretotyping, let’s explore a real-world example.
Imagine you’re a product manager at a e-commerce company, and you’ve had an idea for a new feature that allows customers to virtually “try on” clothing using augmented reality (AR) technology. Before investing in building this complex feature, you decide to create a pretotype.
You start by setting up a simple landing page that explains the concept and benefits of the AR try-on feature. You then drive traffic to the landing page through targeted social media ads and email campaigns.
To your surprise, the landing page receives an overwhelming number of visits and sign-ups, indicating a strong interest in the proposed feature.
Encouraged by this initial validation, you decide to take the pretotype a step further by creating a Wizard of Oz prototype. You build a basic mobile app that simulates the AR try-on experience, but instead of using actual AR technology, you have a team of human “wizards” manually superimposing clothing images onto user-submitted photos.
As users interact with the prototype, you gather valuable feedback on the user experience, desired features, and potential pain points. You also observe how users engage with the try-on process, providing insights into their behavior and preferences.
Armed with this wealth of data and feedback, you can make an informed decision about whether to proceed with building the full-fledged AR try-on feature, pivot to a different solution, or scrap the idea altogether.
Best Practices for Effective Pretotyping
While pretotyping can be a powerful tool, there are certain best practices to keep in mind to maximize its effectiveness:
- Start Small: Begin with the leanest possible pretotype that can validate your core assumptions. You can always iterate and expand as you gather more feedback.
- Focus on Key Assumptions: Identify the critical assumptions that need validation and design your pretotype accordingly.
- Involve Real Users: Remember, the goal is to gather feedback from your target audience, so make sure to involve real users in the pretotyping process.
- Measure the Right Metrics: Define the metrics that will help you determine the success or failure of your pretotype, such as sign-ups, engagement, or conversion rates.
- Iterate and Pivot: Be prepared to iterate and pivot based on the feedback you receive. Pretotyping is an iterative process, and course corrections are expected.
- Communicate Clearly: When involving users, ensure that you communicate the purpose of the pretotype clearly and manage expectations appropriately.
- Embrace Failure: Not every pretotype will be a success, and that’s okay. Embrace failure as an opportunity to learn and refine your ideas.
Pretotyping in the Product Development Lifecycle
Pretotyping is not a one-time activity; it’s a mindset and a strategy that should be woven into your product development lifecycle. Here’s how you can incorporate pretotyping at different stages:
- Ideation: Use pretotyping techniques like landing pages and crowdsourcing to validate new product ideas and concepts early on.
- Feature Development: Before investing heavily in building new features, create pretotypes to test assumptions and gather user feedback.
- Product Iterations: As you release new versions of your product, use pretotyping to validate proposed changes and enhancements.
- Market Expansion: When exploring new markets or customer segments, pretotyping can help validate your assumptions and gauge demand.
- Continuous Improvement: Embrace pretotyping as a continuous process, using it to iteratively refine and improve your products based on user feedback.
Overcoming Challenges with Pretotyping
While pretotyping offers numerous benefits, it’s not without its challenges. Here are some common hurdles you might face and how to overcome them:
- Stakeholder Buy-In: Some stakeholders may be skeptical of the value of pretotyping, preferring to jump straight into building. Address these concerns by highlighting the time and cost savings, as well as the risk mitigation benefits of pretotyping.
- User Recruitment: Finding the right users to participate in your pretotyping efforts can be challenging. Leverage your existing user base, social media, and targeted advertising to reach your target audience.
- Managing Expectations: When involving users in pretotypes, it’s essential to manage their expectations and communicate clearly that this is an experimental process, not a finished product.
- Separating Signal from Noise: With pretotyping, you’ll inevitably receive a mix of valuable feedback and noise. Develop a process for separating the two and prioritizing the insights that truly matter.
- Resistance to Change: If your pretotyping efforts reveal the need for significant changes or pivots, you may face resistance from teams or stakeholders invested in the original idea. Address this by fostering a culture of experimentation and embracing change as a natural part of the product development process.
Embracing Pretotyping in Your Organization
Adopting pretotyping as a core practice within your organization can be a transformative shift, but it requires buy-in and commitment from all levels. Here are some tips for successfully embracing pretotyping:
- Lead by Example: As a product leader, model the behavior you want to see by actively engaging in pretotyping and championing its benefits.
- Provide Training and Resources: Equip your teams with the knowledge and resources they need to effectively utilize pretotyping techniques.
- Celebrate Successes: Highlight and celebrate successful pretotyping efforts to reinforce the value and encourage broader adoption.
- Foster a Culture of Experimentation: Cultivate an organizational culture that embraces experimentation, learns from failures, and values validated learning over assumptions.
- Integrate Pretotyping into Processes: Update your product development processes and workflows to incorporate pretotyping as a standard practice, not an afterthought.
- Measure and Iterate: Continuously measure the impact of pretotyping on your product development efforts and iterate on your approach as needed.
Conclusion
Pretotyping offers a powerful tool for validating ideas, mitigating risks, and making informed decisions. By embracing pretotyping, you can save time and resources, gather valuable user feedback, and increase the likelihood of delivering successful products that resonate with your target audience.
Remember, pretotyping is not a one-size-fits-all solution; it’s a mindset and a strategy that should be tailored to your specific product goals and challenges. Experiment with different pretotyping techniques, iterate based on feedback, and don’t be afraid to pivot when necessary.
Ultimately, the key to successful pretotyping is fostering a culture of experimentation and validated learning within your organization. By embracing this mindset, you’ll not only improve your chances of delivering successful products but also cultivate an environment that encourages innovation and continuous improvement.