How rapid prototyping makes your business idea successful

As entrepreneurs we all want to be successful in the market with our products and services. In the end, market success depends on numerous factors. Still, there is a simple but very powerful way of thinking that serves as guidance for entrepreneurs. In conjunction with rapid prototyping it increases the probability of success for business ideas.

Why prototyping? Desirability, viability, feasibility.

Like IDEO pointed out three dimensions are key for being successful with products and services: desirability, viability and feasibility. Products, which are desired by customers, economically viable and feasible to implement will lead to market success.

That means you need proof in all of the three dimensions as basis for market success. You get proof by answering three essential questions:

• Proof of value: Is my idea providing value to customers?
• Proof of profitability: Is my idea profitable and can I build a sustainable business out of it?
• Proof of feasibility: Is it something that can be built?

Proof in only one of those dimensions is not sufficient. A working product without the possibility to make money or without a demand from customers would not be a sustainable basis for a new business.

When business ideas are realized we often observe that initial focus lies on feasibility or “the product” (in terms of technology) only. The underlying belief of entrepreneurs/intrapreneurs is “we need a working product (feasibility) before we can see how customers will respond to it (desirability)”. Testing and iterating with the help of prototypes is considered, but it is done rather late in the innovation journey, for instance, it starts with a high fidelity solution prototype or even later at a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage.

Unfortunately, all the work and time up to this point (sometimes years) are an effort with no indication for a product-market fit. In the worst case you are working without having any proof for neither a viable business nor a desired solution. This view is also in line with some other observations. According to CB Insights the most common reason for start-up failures (>40%) is not addressing a relevant customer‘s need.

We recommend thinking about desirability first. Take a customer and user perspective, before thinking about how to implement it from a technical point of view or calculating business cases. Try to answer whether you are really working on something that matters to real people. And do this as early as possible.

When to use rapid prototyping? Problem and solution space.

There are numerous different types and examples of rapid prototyping. We understand the use of prototypes during an innovation journey as means to explore, evaluate, communicate and learn. In general the purpose of rapid prototyping is to help you gaining insights in a cost-efficient way.

In order to become aware of what you should find out, it is important to know at which stage of the innovation journey you are. The concept of problem and solution space helps you to locate your idea within a simplified innovation journey.

• In the problem space you look at problems/challenges worth solving
  (What are relevant problems for real people?)
• In the solution space it is about designing a solution worth implementing
  (What should you actually build?)

In our work we often observe that entrepreneurs/intrapreneurs tend to jump to the solution space without thinking about the actual problem. When developing new business ideas, we recommend to go one step back and to see what you are trying to solve first. Ensure that you have sufficient understanding about your customers, their needs and the context of future solutions before thinking about actual solutions. By doing this you identify problems worth solving and increase the chances to achieve product-market fit tremendously.

But how can you do this? Use rapid prototyping already in the problem space and interact with customers from the very beginning of the innovation journey. Often this leads to surprising new insights and shows us that we should reformulate some of our previous assumptions.

Which prototype to choose from?

You might know a lot of different prototypes. Think about lego, 3D printing, storyboarding, wireframing or mock-ups and there are many many more. The question is: when to use which kind of prototyping method?

Well, it depends. It mostly depends on what you want to find out and where are you are in the innovation journey. Some prototypes are very good to explore the problem space (e.g. visualizing existing processes or customer journeys). Others are suitable for validating in the solution space (e.g. roleplays for customer experiences). Here it is important to clarify which test object you are actually testing and what your hypothesis are. Think about the desirability dimension again. It is a big difference, if you are trying to test your value proposition (e.g. testing with sketches) or how well your customers are interacting with your product or service (e.g. testing with mock-ups).

The power of rapid prototyping

As you can see rapid prototyping can be used at many points in the innovation journey. Be aware about what you want to achieve with your prototype and select your prototyping method accordingly. Locating yourself in problem and solution space as well as taking the different perspectives of desirability, viability and feasibility will help you in doing so. By using prototypes in your interaction with customers you identify problems worth solving and obtain evidence for solutions that are valuable for your customers — instead of just guessing. With this understanding, rapid prototyping will serve you as a powerful tool to progress in your innovation journey and will increase the probability of success for your business idea.