20 June, 2019

Why do you need to kick off your startup with the prototype?

Developing a startup company is a big deal, where entrepreneurs cannot decide how to start the company and where to start it from. Starting the company with the prototype offers a lot of scope for improvement, along with getting good investments and earning a good number of clients who can review the prototype and helps in improvement.

Previously, the idea was to build an MVP (Most Viable Product) and then get off with the launch. The flow of work was:

1. Get an idea
2. Build the MVP with a really strong technical team
3. Show it to your potential customers
4. Collect feedback and iterate

The MVP takes almost 3-4 months to be developed and then shared with the customers to make the requested changes and iterate. But why wait for so long?

Now the concept has changed. The trend popular and widely used is:

1. Discuss and plan out the idea
2. Explore the feasible solutions
3. Build a prototype
4. Show the prototype to customers
5. Get feedback and make changes

This process is a much shorter one and helps to launch the products even in a short span of 2 weeks. This helps to kickstart your business with limited funds as well as resources.

Benefits

Fastest launch to market

One of the most important benefits that are offered is the fastest possible product launch in the market. One to two weeks' time is more than enough to choose one of the feasible solutions and start building the prototype. With lesser time, you will not have enough clarity of thoughts. With more time, your mind will explore more complex ideas, turning the prototype into the Most Viable Product (MVP).

Time and cost-effective option

Building the MVP needs a core technical team that is often out of budget for a newly formed startup. However, building a prototype can be done with less experienced professionals, thus offering the startup, a cost-effective solution. Moreover, time consumption in building the prototype is less than MVP, thus proving to be a financially feasible and timely solution.

Testing with real customers

This is essential to validate the prototype at a very early stage of the design concept. This also helps to unfold new ideas and concepts that could be incorporated into the actual product.

Replacing MVP with the prototype

MVP is replaced with prototypes and with further iterations, the changes needed by the real customers are incorporated. Thus, with lesser resources, time and effort, the prototype is made to fit the needs of the customers, thus adapting to the changes and pass the consecutive tests.

Collecting feedback while building

With prototypes, it is possible to keep collecting feedback and improvising on it, rather than completing the entire MVP and then moving towards customer reviews and changes. This needs to change in the mindset of the people as most startups fail to believe that moving on with a prototype is possible.

Early testing and iterations have been enormously successful in saving money, time and effort, especially for startups and hence it is important to kick off your startup with prototypes.