That first demo - how to build it?

There are a million and one decisions that have to be made before your first valuable demo.

What should I build? This one seems a bit obvious, we can’t build it if we don’t know what it is.

How should I build it? This is a little sneakier, but just as - if not more - important.

What you build determines what you (and your focus group) get to test. How you build it determines how much it will cost, how long it will take, and how many samples you can make. Build the wrong thing, and you don’t learn anything. Build the right thing the wrong way, and you waste money, time, and energy.

Deciding the right way to build your prototype - no matter what stage of the development process you’re in - can make or break your business. Should we 3D print this piece, or pay for injection mold tooling? Should we design a dedicated PCB with custom firmware, or connect a Raspberry Pi and some breakout boards with some Python code?

There is no one right answer to these questions. A more polished prototype will demo better, but will take longer and cost more to make.

How to decide? In my experience, experience helps a lot. Either find someone with experience to help you, or get the experience yourself. Even better, find someone with experience who’s willing to teach you.

Have you ever learned the hard way how to build something? I’d love to hear about it.

-Brian Schoolcraft

Building something new? Show someone - soon

You know what's more informative than holding a prototype in your hand? Watching someone else interact with it.

It's not their baby. They haven't been thinking about it for the past three months. They might not even know what it's supposed to do?

But you know what they do know? They know exactly what it feels like to use your product for the first time. Does it solve their problem? Does it make their life better? Is it too heavy, too small, too confusing?

We're so often blinded by our own expectations and understanding of our project, that we can't see how an inexperienced user will interact with it. Something we thought needed to be optimized might be just fine. That feature we thought was obvious might not be quite so slick.

Never underestimate the value of an outside perspective.

Show it off! 

-Brian Schoolcraft

Build Something!

Talking about your new idea is a wonderful first step, but that still won’t make it real. As soon as you can, as soon as you have a clear enough picture of what you want, figure out how to build something. 

You don’t have to (and most of the time shouldn’t!) build everything you think you want, or even need. Build the simplest version of your idea. 3D print a mockup so you can hold it in your hands. Use an Arduino and off the shelf modules to test your embedded device idea. 

One important thing about what you build - it should include the easiest/cheapest/simplest version of the things you’re worried about. 

Once you have something you can hold in your hands, interact with, use every day, you have so much more information. Now you know you should be worried about this issue and spend time working on it, or you realize it wasn’t a big deal after all, and the easy solution works just fine.

Build it, use it, test it. Discover the problems and celebrate the stuff that works!

-Brian Schoolcraft