Prototyping, Startup Ways to Develop Products More Efficiently

Besides doing business idea validation and manufacture business modelright for the startup, a founder also needs to think about how his product or service can be tested to users at the beginning of its development. One way to do this is by prototyping the platform. Through prototypes, startups can test and demonstrate their products more quickly, simply, and efficiently. That way, startups can measure what's going well and move quickly to fix their flaws based on what's going on feedback user.

Prototyping This is also a follow-up topic in the acceleration program mentoring DSLaunchpad 2.0 powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). On this topic, Ivan Arie (Co-Founder & CEO of Tanihub), Agung Bezharie Co-Founder & CEO of Warung Pintar, Mehr Vaswani (Startup Business Development Associate of AWS), and Andrew Wangsanata (Solution Architect of AWS) were present to share experience and insight related to prototyping to the participants.

Reduce Risk and Accelerate Innovation through Prototyping

The main goal of prototyping for startups is to reduce the risk of a product built from scratch that doesn't match the needs and desires of users when a more complete version of the product is launched. To do prototyping It also helps startups accelerate innovation and shorten the time it takes to develop their products.

Prototypes can be made simply but still representative with minimalistic features and forms. According to Andrew Wangsanata, startups can make simple prototypes before making more complex platforms so that they can do many iterations. "We always want simpleprototype before complex ones, so we can start small, we can fail quickly, we can iterate over more.” he said.

In addition, Andrew also added that by making prototypes, startups can develop good products more efficiently. "Actually, if we prototyping, it will make a better product, lower price, and more efficient. Why? Because of our time prototyping, we start small or simple and we iterate a lot.” he added.

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Through prototypes, startups can also directly see how users respond to essential features in the initial version of the product. Various responses, both positive and negative, must be considered by the founder. This is useful to really validate how the product presented can be well received by potential users when it is officially launched. Not only that, the existence of a prototype also provides startup opportunities to build a reputation among users.

"The point of prototyping is to validate certain ideas, so ideas what do you want tovalidate. Do you want people to spend their time here, want gak do people use tools This is to help their business, or for example (prospective users) want to gak do people wear tools this is for connect to the supplier or consumer." explained Agung Bezharie.

Importance of Agile and Open-Minded Mindset in Prototyping

To support the process prototyping fast, startup also requires mindset and framework support, one of which is by implementing a work system that agile. Through agile ways of working, teams can work faster to complete small parts, as well as integrate with other teams to realize faster product development. The work technique that is closely associated with this system is also known as sprint design. "How you build software quickly and quickly and instead of building everything upfront, you break it into smaller pieces." said Mehr Vaswani when explaining how the agile.

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Mindset Another thing that founders must also have is open-mindedness regarding product development. A founder may have an idea to create an application with the complexity of its features, but if it is not needed by the user then the solution will be useless and not optimal. According to Ivan Arie, in this phase startups must be open with a choice of various options channel product development. “Openness and open-minded from the co-founder team, it is very important to determine which channel to use first.” Ivan Arie explained.

This is also related to the selection of the prototype form that will be used. You can make a prototype in the form of a landing page, simple applications, presentation slides, or even with an explanation video about the features of your product. "There is no one best or only channel that is right.said Ivan.

If you find a failure in the process prototyping, the founder must also continue to be ready and focus on improvements that can be made based on feedback obtained from consumers. “Failure is part of innovation, we cannot innovate without failure, of course we will experience big failure. What we want is that we can control how failure occurs.” added Andrew Wangsanata.

Process prototyping this is certainly not an easy journey and it is enough to do it once. Feedback obtained from consumers, should be the impetus for continuous iteration. This is important to do so that when launched, the platform that is owned is in accordance with the needs and desires of users. "Prototype itu gak only happened once, it's a constant process that you have to do over and over again inside your startup." closed Agung Bezharie.