There’s a fine line between moving quickly and making mistakes. Especially if you’re developing a physical product, a single mold error or incorrect material selection can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. An investor doesn’t look at the potential of your idea, but how well you manage such errors. So, how do we accelerate without making mistakes? Lean Prototyping and by eliminating risks early on.
This methodology draws its origins from the waste-minimizing philosophy of the Toyota Production System, developed by pioneers like Taiichi Ohno at Toyota Motor Company. These principles were first introduced to the Western world as “Lean” in the book The Machine That Changed the World (1990), by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos. Instead of immediately transforming your idea into its most expensive version, it requires progressing with steps that reduce risk at each stage. For us, the current application of this is Eric Ries’s Lean Enterprise model, and specifically the design application of the Build-Measure-Learn cycle (Ries, 2011). Ries aims to maximize learning while minimizing waste; prototyping is precisely this risk-reduction insurance.
Prototyping Isn’t a Cost, It’s Your Insurance
In traditional manufacturing, a prototype is the final checkpoint in production. In the Lean approach, a prototype is an insurance premium at the beginning of the process. Each prototyping phase provides an opportunity to test your most important assumption before moving on to the next expensive step. This is a risk management strategy that protects your capital.
The Three-Stage Risk Reduction Model of Lean Prototyping
At Cohoo, before taking the idea to prototype, we list the most critical assumptions of the business model.
1. Assumption Identification: Where is the Most Critical Risk?
– Is it whether your customer will use the product? (UX risk)
– Whether your product can be produced at the specified cost? (Technical feasibility risk)
– Whether the user will pay a certain price for this product? (Market risk)
Testing the wrong assumption is a waste of time. We start by targeting the highest risk. For example, if the biggest risk is ergonomics, we leave the material risk for later.
2. MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
MVP is not a complete final product, but the simplest version with just enough features to test an assumption. This approach requires progressing in steps that reduce the level of risk at each stage, rather than immediately turning your idea into the most expensive version.
– Low-Resolution MVP (Paper & Cardboard): Used to test ergonomic feel or interface flow. It costs nothing, but the feedback loop is incredibly fast. You don’t need the most expensive 3D printer to understand how to hold a pen.
– Medium-Resolution MVP (Different Materials): Low-cost 3D printing or simple mechanical assemblies are used to test technical assumptions such as mechanisms or durability.
– High-Resolution MVP (Pilot Production): Used to gauge market response to aesthetics and final material quality, but only proceed to this stage if all previous risks have been eliminated.
The primary purpose of a prototype is to obtain user feedback, not technical proficiency.
3. Rapid Feedback Loop: Learning is Priority
The feedback loop is the design process equivalent of the Measure and Learn steps defined by (Ries, 2011). By testing simple prototypes with real users, we save hundreds of hours of inaccurate engineering work. Even if we don’t get the expected response from the first prototype, it’s not a failure. Because it means we avoid a major marketing fiasco. Rapid learning is the greatest long-term profit.
Speed is Controlled Success
Lean Prototyping is not just a design technique; it’s a risk management strategy that protects your capital. At Cohoo, we aim to lay a solid foundation for your project without slowing you down. By minimizing the cost of making mistakes, we pave the way to market success.
Contact Us: Let’s identify your project’s most critical assumptions together and help you accelerate without making mistakes in the product development process.
Resources:
- Ries, E. (2011). The lean startup: How today’s entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses. Crown Business.
https://ia800509.us.archive.org/7/items/TheLeanStartupErickRies/The%20Lean%20Startup%20-%20Erick%20Ries.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEvKo90qBns
