Think of the money wasted...the frustrated investors. EVERYONE wondering...what did we miss? What happened?
Well, what happened was a faulty launch.
They launched by leaping. They launched before learning. We often get so caught up in the big vision that we miss validating if the idea works on a small scale first.
The way you increase the chances of success is through a prototype: a sample version of your product or process that helps you to test your ideas before investing time and money into actually developing them.
And here is the trick, this process never stops, the fact that you have a launched product doesn't mean you stop learning to make it better every day.
You're never leaping into the unknown with fingers crossed, instead you're in a constant state of learning.
So how can you prevent your next launch from failing? Here’s the secret I’ve learned from working at one of the biggest organizations in the world, Google… Is all about putting the user first. By gathering first-hand user feedback, you can make informed decisions and improve user satisfaction in the long run.
Prototype may sound fancy, but it shouldn't be. They come in all different shapes and sizes, ranging from simple paper models to fully functional, interactive prototypes. Build something quick and dirty to show to your possible users.
Take Google for example. Test and iterate is part of our 8 pillars of innovation. The first version of Google ads, released in 1999, wasn’t very successful – almost no one clicked on the ads. Not many people remember that because we kept iterating and eventually reached the model we have today. And we’re still improving it; every year we run tens of thousands of search and ads quality experiments, and over the past year we’ve launched over a dozen new formats. Some products we update every day.
So next time instead of waiting to see if it works, save yourself time and money and before launching your product or process prototype, test and iterate.
It’s about progress, not perfection!
See you next time!
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