Should Pretotypes Target Every Single Customer?
There is a dangerous misconception about experimenting in Pretotyping and Lean Startup. Too often we hear people (customers, users) complaining that the MVP mindset is wrong (and so much more other simpler pretotypes), that innovators should make sure they build a *perfect* product before they launch.
Their complaint is part of the process.
The product cannot be *perfect* until it’s been tested by the users themselves! An MVP (or an even simpler pretotype) is a tool to experiment and learn how to make the product *perfect*.
Taking the Moore’s Innovation Adoption Curve above, certainly such an experiment will not appeal the Majority or Laggard customers. The only customers who are willing to live with inevitable bugs and imperfections are the Innovators and Early Adopters.
Customers complaining that companies should do it different and create a *perfect* product from the beginning are simply self-selecting themselves out.
Sure, at this point the sample is not representative of the entire population, but this is exactly the point of an innovation evolving into mainstream adoption. To be precise, the evolution process involves both the innovation AND the mainstream customers: the product evolves into a *perfect* product and the market perception of it evolves as well into considering it mainstream.
When you Pretotype or MVP your innovation, make sure to select the right audience for it, which is NOT the final audience when the product will go mainstream!
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