Generally speaking, when launching a new product in mind to create a startup, most of the time, we stay inside the "garage" without looking at the market or customers. Are you sure you're creating the right product? The pretotyping is a method that could be complementary to Lean Startup to validate that you are creating the right product before creating it well. Entrepreneurship training ITESCIA 2015 - 2016

1. Pretotyping
Crash Test Your Idea…

2. Who am I ?
 André De Sousa
 Agile Coach / Lean Startup Coach /
Valtech Trainer
 7+ years of Agile Exp.
 1 Failed Startup (2010)
 1 Twitter : @_adesousa
2

3. Who conceived pretotyping ?
Alberto Savoia, PretotypeLabs
Co-Founder (Ex-Engineering Director at Google)
Jeremy Clark, PretotypeLabs Co-Founder
(Ex. FXX inc. CEO)
Patrick Copeland, (Senior Engineering Director at
Google)
3

4. Doing Well (Build the thing right / Agile) is not enough
 Some stats…
 80-90% new products fail in the market [1]
 4/5 startups lose funder’s money [2]
 90% mobile apps don’t produce money
 78% project disappear within 4 years
 16% to 50% strategic projects are abandoned [3]
 47% companies estimates 50% of projects fail [3]
4
[1] Robert Cooper, Winning at New Products
[2] Shikhar Ghosh (Harvard Business School)
[3] l'Observatoire des projets (France, 2011)

5. Even the « best » are no exception
 Developed and operated by Apple
 Launched in 2010 September 1st
 Apple officially closed the service in
2012 September 30, and replaced it by
Facebook and Twitter integration
 Google Wave real time messaging
platform (~20-30Mln $).
 Lego Universe - Massive Multiplayer
Online Game (MMOG)
 Launched in 2010 October 26
 Closed in 2012 December 31
Cost (~50Mln $).
5
Source : Elalami Lafkih

6. 6
Source: Ash Maurya

7. La loi de l’échec
Most of new ideas fail.
Even though they are very well
executed.
7
“
”

8. 8

9. Pretotyping
Make sure you are creating the right
product before creating it right.
9

10. “
”
If I had asked my customers
what they wanted, they
would have asked for a
faster horse.
Henry Ford
10

11. How do I know if I have the right idea?
11
Do not ask ever, ever
!!

12. 12
The world of
opinions
If I were you…
The better
way is to…
Super
produit !!
THIS IS
USELESS !

13. How do I know if I have the right idea?
13
Idea
+
Opinions
=
Uncertainty

14. In the world of opinions, each idea could be a winner
14
Someone knows one of these companies?

15. In the world of opinions, each idea could be a winner
15
False Positive

16. In the world of opinions, each idea could be a loser
16

17. In the world of opinions, each idea could be a loser
17
False negative

18. Sortez du monde des opinions rapidement
18
Opinions -> Datas
Questions -> Actions
Ideas -> Pretotypes

19. 19
What is the
Pretotyping ?

20. IBM Speech-to-Text project
20
$$$$$
Dear Mr
Jones,
In reply to
your letter, I
…
Source : Elalami Lafkih

21. 21
In your opinion, good
or bad idea ?

22. 22
And How does the
system works ?

23. This was the IBM « Speech-to-Text » pretotype
23
Dear Mr
Jones,
In reply to
your letter,
I …
Source : Elalami Lafkih

24. IBM Speech-to-Text project
 IBM’s vision about their customers
« We like the idea of speech-to-text and we’re gonna pay a
lot of $$ for the product if it’s GOOD ! »
24
Before
Pretotyping
tests
Source : Elalami Lafkih
After
Pretotyping
tests

25. Fail fast and cheaper
25
Compulsion to
continue at all costs
Invested
Time
Minutes Hours Days Weeks Months Years
Source : Elalami Lafkih

26. Pretotyping effect: Fail fast and test more
26
Without
Pretotyping
With
Pretotyping
Tested
Ideas
Slow
Failures
Fast
Failures
Successes
Alberto Savoia (Google)

27. Law of Failure (9/10 products fail), How to manipulate it …
27

28. Palm Pilot Experience
28

29. Pretotyping vs Prototyping : Realize the good product
 Prototype : Investment in weeks / months
 Can we do it ?
 Will it work as planned ?
 Deliverable: functional prototype
 Pretotype : Investment in hours/ days
 Users are gonna use it as planned ?
 Users will continue to use it ?
 Deliverable: Prototype to probe customer
29

30. Pretotyping – The other definition
Pretotyping
verbe: Validating the market appeal and actual
usage of a potential new product objectively by
simulating its vital features "Core Experience"
with the smallest possible investment of time
and money
30

31. 31
Pretotyping
Practices

32. Pretotype #1 : Mechanical Turk
32

33. Pretotype #2 : Pinocchio
33

34. Pretotype #3 : Fake Door
34
Pretotype It
www.pretotypeitbook.com
The official book on pretotyping
by Alberto Savoia. Only $20.00

35. Pretotype #4 : MVP
35
Minimum
Viable
Product

36. Pretotype #5 : Provincial
36
Source : Elalami Lafkih

37. Le IIL et le RIL
37
Market Sample
(~ 100 à 1000)
ILI : Initial Level of Interest
OLI : Ongoing Level of Interest
R1 (week 1)
R2 (week 2)
R3 (week 3)
I Initial
S ( Sample)
Target
Market
Time
Source : Elalami Lafkih

38. Case Study: Bob’s Rate This Plate App
 Let’s assume that Bob is a nutritionist who wants to
create a mobile app that analyzes a photo of a meal and
returns a nutritional analysis and some kind of score
from
A: “Healthy and nutritious” to "F: fast food »
 Let’s call this product the Bob’s Rate This Plate app
38 Source: Pretotype it, Alberto Savoia.

39. Step #1
Validate certain assumptions,
constraints of use by
personal experimentation
39

40. Step #2 : The Supa dupa cheap, Lowtech, Mechanical Turk
 Since Bob is a nutritionist and he has over 500 clients, he can ask a few
of his clients (say, 50 of them, about 10%) if they’d be interested in
participating in a one month experiment
Dear Mary,
Thank you for helping me test Rate This Plate:
Here are your ratings for today:
Breakfast:
F (eggs and bacon, c’mon you know better than that)
Lunch:
B (salad good, blue cheese dressing bad)
Dinner:
A- (chicken and veggies looked healthy, but you get a minus for that)
Please try to eat some fruits and veggies for the next few meals.
Sincerely,
Bob
 Let’s say that 30 (out of 50) of Bob’s clients agree to do the experiment
 (ILI = 30/50, or 60%)
40

41. Step #3 : OLI
 "Hey Bob, can you send me my average GPA?"
 "If I forget to take a photo can I just send you a description of my meal?"
 "Can you send me a menu for each day that will guarantee me an ‘A’?"
 "Bob, I don’t have good phone reception in our cafeteria, it sucks that I have
to go outdoor to email you the photo – while my food gets cold."
41
Week Active (out of 30) Photos received
1 28 234
2 24 298
3 22 268
4 22 172

42. Step #4 : And profitability ?
 Are people who have experienced the free app from Bob
would pay for this service?
 How would they be willing to pay $10 a month? $30 per
month?
42

43. Bob’s app : The end
 With the help of a student, paid $15/h, Bob could make a
profit of $4 per patient.
43
2
42
$30
/M
$10
/M
450 remaining customers of Bob
100 Customers

44. Non-exhaustive list of tools to pretotype #1
 Paper, wood, etc…
 Palm Pilot pretotype is an excellent example of the
way you can test a concept and the use of a simple
mockup (Pinocchio Pretotype)
 Google AdWords
 A good way to measure ILI before investing more
on creating it.
44

45. Non-exhaustive list of tools to pretotype #2
Balsamiq, Pixate or Pop (!!)
 To view / create pretotypes. For you and to help
convey the message to potential users.
45

46. Non-exhaustive list of tools to pretotype #3
 Kickstarter
 If you manage to escape the paranoia
(unfounded) theft of idea, you can test your
ideas and collect the ILI on Kickstarter
 Youtube
 Youtube is a good tool for those who imagine a
product and its use, though it does not yet exist
(Dropbox-like story)
46

47. Non-exhaustive list of tools to pretotype #4
 Weebly, Wordpress, Generator
(DesignModo)
 There are many WYSIWYG tools for creating
websites. Perfect for testing landing pages,
fakes doors, MVP ...
 Corona SDK (mobile dev)
 If you have confirmed interest in your idea
(ILI) with simple pretotypes, and you're ready
for an MVP, it can allow you to create your first
MVP
(not recommended for implementation
in practice today)
47

48. Learn to pretotype
48

49. Learn to pretotype
49
Free at www.pretotyping.fr (french version)
Source : Elalami Lafkih

50. Some companies who discovered the pretotyping
50

51.  The goal: Produce 1 pretotype before the end of the day
 Think about your idea and how you can validate ILI ASAP
 If possible, start measuring the ILI
 Teams self-organize and share the tasks as they wish.
 Restitution is : 10 minutes max with a pitch + Product Demo /
Pretotype presentation + ILI measures (even unfinished)
 Self-scoring by 5 points from other teams + my rating
 The top 3 teams will have bonus points for next assessment
on the Bootstrapping course.
 And mostly, I’m here to help you …
Pretotyping applied to your idea
51

52. 52

53. 53
Annexes

54. 54
https://s3-eu-west-
1.amazonaws.com/pretotypeit/media/pretotypi
ng-cheatsheet.pdf
Cheat Sheet Pretotyping

55. Sources
 http://www.blog-gestion-de-projet.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/03/Rapport-observatoire-des-
projets-2011.pdf
 https://www.belfius.be/NoCMS/doccenter/GUA_04_F
R.pdf (slide#35)
 http://www.pretotypelabs.com/
 http://pretotyping.fr/
 http://pretotyping.blogspot.fr/
 https://s3-eu-west-
1.amazonaws.com/pretotypeit/media/pretotyping-
cheatsheet.pdf
55