GVDS Journal #8: Let’s do a monthly pretotyping challenge 😁

Pretotyping is definitely easier than actual rock climbing… though you’ll get in better shape with the latter. 💪

Back in December, I started experimenting with pretotyping for my business, Dallas Design Sprints. The idea was the same as everything else I get involved with… in order to learn something properly, you have to put in applied practice.

My first experiment was with Miro Masters, a service that pairs Miro designers with people who need help with their projects. That one hit the 10% threshold, as I was able to place three different designers with prospects. I thought about expanding the service to include Mural, but decided to go in another direction.

For my second experiment, I teamed up with Jonathan Sun to start the Official Pretotyping Podcast. We aimed for a modest number of subscribers, which we met towards the first couple of weeks of our launch. Our next challenge will be to increase that percentage even more.

And before I started work on my third experiment (DashFest, an online conference for pretotypers), I’m going to try and create a challenge for others to try pretotyping themselves.

Here’s what I’d like to propose…

• Let’s start with a pretotyping challenge for the month of February. Basically, experiment with the pretotyping process and execute and complete at least one pretotype before March.
• I’ll host a couple of live sessions to walk through both the market engagement hypothesis (MEH) and it’s corresponding XYZ hypothesis formulation. Some of them will be hosted on Clubhouse, and others will be on Zoom and Meetbutter.
• Use Exponentially’s Pretotyping Slack to hold asynchronous communication around the experiments people undertake. That way, we’ll have some focus and collaboration going on that could help drive efforts to competition by the end of the month.

If you’re game to try it, hit me up on LinkedIn or visit the aforementioned Slack channel to get started.

Let’s see what happens! 😁