Rapid Prototyping
Your Startup
Rob Fan @ fbFund
07.15.2009

2 hours of rapid
prototyping creates a
funded company

“Rapid prototyping” at
Sharethrough
Problem Solution
*Image borrowed from Eric Ries @ http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com

“Rapid prototyping” at
Sharethrough
Does this solve the pain?
Do customer want to pay for this?
Etc.
Scaling
Product
Build first worry about scaling later
Team or
Refactor extensively and heavily for
Company features in use
Problem Solution
*Image borrowed from Eric Ries @ http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com

Don’t use nails to hold
together something that only
needs to be held together by
tape

Product development effort
should be proportional to the
customer development effort

Hierarchical company &
product planning

Hierarchical company &
product planning

Hierarchical company &
product planning
• Company Vision
• Company Roadmap
• Product Vision
• Product Roadmap
• Release Planning
• Sprint Planning
• Daily Scrum

Release on regular
intervals with built-in
feedback loops

Release on regular intervals
with built-in feedback loops
• 2 week build cycles
• feedback loops
• retrospective/5 why’s to improve process
• demo to customer dev for product
feedback
• daily scrum for feed on day-to-day
operations

Use customer
development to organize
and formalize inputs

Identify early-evangelists
to start getting
customer feedback

Cheat Sheet

Cheat Sheet
• Do not be afraid to fail or make mistakes

Cheat Sheet
• Do not be afraid to fail or make mistakes
• Fail fast, learn, and move on

Cheat Sheet
• Do not be afraid to fail or make mistakes
• Fail fast, learn, and move on
• Create lots of feedback loops

Cheat Sheet
• Do not be afraid to fail or make mistakes
• Fail fast, learn, and move on
• Create lots of feedback loops
• Talk to and listen to your customers

Cheat Sheet
• Do not be afraid to fail or make mistakes
• Fail fast, learn, and move on
• Create lots of feedback loops
• Talk to and listen to your customers
• Learn in intervals, NOT in a constant stream

Cheat Sheet
• Do not be afraid to fail or make mistakes
• Fail fast, learn, and move on
• Create lots of feedback loops
• Talk to and listen to your customers
• Learn in intervals, NOT in a constant stream
• Learn as much as you can from peers and
advisors

Thanks!
Contact: rob@sharethrough.com
http://robfan.com