Pretotyping

Pretotyping is a set of techniques for testing a new product idea quickly and inexpensively, before investing in building a full-fledged prototype. The goal of pretotyping is to answer the question: "Are we building The Right It?"

Pretotyping is different from prototyping. Prototyping is about answering the question: "Can we build it?" Pretotyping is about answering the question: "Should we build it?"

The core principles of pretotyping are:

• Test the market, not the product: Pretotyping is about validating your Market Engagement Hypothesis, not about testing the functionality of your product.
• Fake it before you make it: You can use a variety of techniques to simulate the product experience without actually building the product.
• Get skin in the game: The most reliable data comes from users who have something to lose or gain.
• Test quickly and cheaply: Pretotyping experiments should be designed to be run in a matter of hours or days, with minimal investment.

Some common pretotyping techniques include:

• The Mechanical Turk Pretotype
• The Pinocchio Pretotype
• The Fake Door Pretotype
• The Facade Pretotype
• The YouTube Pretotype
• The One-Night Stand Pretotype
• The Infiltrator Pretotype
• The Relabel Pretotype