hello everyone marco montemagno here
founder of the tech alchemist hello and
today here with me Alberto Savoia from
San Francisco you dare Alberto now the
interview Oh what of you right Alberto
thank you so much for being here today
and it’s always great to to see some
Italians doing great things all over the
world and you are one of those people
that I really appreciate I’ve been
discovering your work recently but I was
really fascinating but your pretotyping
not prototyping but pretotyping work
which is a it’s now an e-book but i
would say can or maybe is or will become
a movement so i think it’s very
interesting for everyone doing business
and so I want to understand it be more
but first I would like to understand
your story because you’ve been working
google really in the beginning and it’s
always very intriguing you know for for
businesses understand what was Google in
the beginning so how did you start there
well I i was born in Rome Italy but when
i visited California and Silicon Valley
I realized that you know just like there
are men who say they’re born in a
woman’s body or vice versa you know I
think I was a Silicon Valley person born
in a Italian body so when i arrived in
Silicon Valley I thought this is the
place for me and I went for a vacation
and then I decided to to stay so over
the years I was always interested in
programming and technology have been
very lucky ended up at Sun Microsystems
in the early days and had a good career
there and then i left i did a startup
that went very well and so after we saw
that startup i thought what am I going
to do and the some of my friends were at
Google so i went there and had an
interview there probably the toughest
interview job interview of my life very
technical the still do that and and i
was fortunate enough after three months
they said there is this little idea we
want to do call
Edwards and they wanted to the same
senior supervision or adult supervision
and I never kind of saw myself as adult
supervision but I kind of accepted the
role and that happened to be at the time
that AdWords was launching so even
though of course it’s the work of many
many more people and I was glad to be
there at a crucial time in you know in a
product that makes billions each quarter
just curious and then I wanna talk about
pretotyping but how was working on such
an amazing successful product which was
in the end AdWords I mean is that one of
the most interesting and he’s a huge
business for for google but it was
really an amazing invention and then
everything started out out of it I mean
been there from the beginning on this
kind of product well at the time you
never realize it right because at the
time Google was still in just one
building there were you know there were
two senior managers myself and the vp of
engineering in engineering and we we
knew it was going to be big I don’t
think even the biggest optimists thought
it was going to be this big and last
this long I think the credit goes to the
people actually have taken this initial
product which was you know a first
product and actually have grown it to
scale to the scale that it has now but
at the time you don’t realize hey I just
remember a lot of work just being busy
you don’t even think about ten years in
the future just trying to make sure that
the whole system is launched and it
doesn’t crash all right so um I better
let’s talk about pretotyping um I was
preparing the chart with you’d interview
with you and I was talking with a friend
and say uh I’m going to do an interview
with did this man he’s writing and
talking about pretotyping and my friends
say our prototyping yes okay pro Tavia
say no pretotyping and it’s something
different you know so first of all I can
you explain our our tech alchemist
people what is preto typing all about
right so when you think everybody knows
proto
I think right and the the example that I
use is that when the inventor of the
palm pilot Jeff Hawkins had the first
idea for the Palm Pilot he he didn’t
jump immediately and start building
something right with wires and batteries
and you know and then you know and
displays why because his previous
company startup called a grid will
computers spent years and millions of
dollars tens of millions of dollars to
develop a product then when they
launched it nobody actually bought it it
was the wrong form factor right and the
built the prototype so what Jeff Hawkins
did he actually took and if you really
see the book or the video actually have
images of that took a block of wood he
put the paper sleeve on it with the user
interface for the what became the pump a
load and he pretended to use it right so
you know let’s assume we want to
schedule a meeting i would say Marco you
want to meet next week yeah you say yes
and then I pull out this block of hood
and I kind of pretend that it’s working
and and then if it does work after a
while I realized you know if this was
more than a block of wood if this
actually worked I would use it all the
time so that was what problem with his
other product he built it had all the
functionality that he wasn’t using it so
the word prototype initially started as
pretend attack you pretend to have built
something to see if you would actually
use it because as you know most new
products fail and most new products fail
not because they’re not built right
right very few startups fail because
they cannot build a product they fail
because they didn’t build a product that
the market is interested in you know
even the people who build it for
themselves they wouldn’t use it so it’s
very hard to Gordon who is right to say
that with prototyping I actually have to
build something so I don’t know if I
want to do a prototype of a mobile phone
I basically have to try to build at
least a basic mobile phone and then say
okay this is the prototype of my mobile
phone with pretotyping I can maybe start
with
something very simple you know or a
piece of wood or piece of metal and
pretend that this is the mobile phone
and explain the features that it should
have to look like i’ll give you an
example right still related to the phone
clearly pretotyping only makes sense
when you don’t know if there is an
interest but now we know that people
will buy phones we know they’ll buy
tablets right so you know right now you
don’t need to pre the type of phone
anymore but maybe you have a new idea
for if mobile app so what you need to do
in that case right you could spend weeks
or month building the perfect app let’s
say one of my favorite was called do we
do at Google in this workshops called
Park jerk you know sometimes you find
people who take two parking spots so you
want to do it an application maybe you
were you take the photos and then you
publicly humiliate them on a Forex a
look at how these idiot parks what and
actually this was developed so one thing
is well I can start writing the
application taking the photos creating
the back end the database upload
download do all the sign ups and all the
stuff or and then maybe I figure out I’m
not going to bother with it or maybe you
just pretend it right maybe you draw a
the user interface on a piece of paper
you take a photo with the phone and then
as you walk around you pretend that you
actually have this application and the
thing that you need to test the most is
would I actually use this because if you
don’t use it then it’s a lappy other
people who use it and if you look at
most of the apps in the App Store you
know ninety-five percent of them don’t
make any money right there but just a
few downloads can you do pretotyping
only with you suggested you pretotyping
only with let’s say analog tool or there
are also digital tools that you can use
to create some to prototype your idea
there are some some digital’s but by the
way preeto tapping the slogan is make
sure you’re building the right it before
you build the tried and again you know
the right it could even be a restaurant
right you know I want to do it in in
fact I have an idea for a restaurant
called a pasta note a pass and pass that
I hey why not have a place where you
know you combine these Spanish tell
Game two pasta top of us is great
there’s a change in civ better but so
what but you know most restaurants fail
they fail within a year so I thought
well the thing that maybe I want to do
is to how can I test if there is an
interest for it you know instead of
getting at least 42 years in a
restaurant maybe I can advertise maybe I
can pretend that this restaurant exists
maybe I can have one of those food
trucks there are many ways that are
before you you go for the whole product
there are many tests that you can do one
example you could buy Adwords let’s
assume that I want to write a book as I
use in my book example enough for people
who like to watch squirrels right we
know that there is a market for
birdwatchers but maybe there are people
that like to watch squirrels how do I
know if these people are around there i
can do some online research but perhaps
i can go to Google Adwords I by the
keyboard squirrels and when people type
squirrel I can show an ad for my book
you know the complete squirrel Watchers
ah even though maybe I have not written
the book yet this is a technique called
a fake door right so you don’t actually
have to build the product now clearly
you need to be careful with the ethical
considerations because you know you want
people to click and you can tell them
look I’m thinking of writing this book
if you’re interested give me your email
and I will actually send you a free copy
when it’s out doing a market desk now so
what happens is you know if you have to
write a book it would take months right
and most books like most apps like most
businesses like most startups like most
restaurants like most movies are not
successful not because they’re not well
done in most cases but because there
isn’t a market for that so if you do
this is a small number of people pays a
very small penalty you know by say you
know through the fake door by clicking
on it but the the public at large gets
the reward that people do not spend time
building products or applications that
are wasted and yeah and then the price
of failure and the cost of failure for
you is anyway very low and you can felt
very fast and change and so it is very
smart absolutely and that’s what
done with my book pretotyping I gave
hundreds of talks on pretotyping at
Google people loved it and they said I
were to write a book and I thought oh my
god write a book it’s gonna take months
you know you have to sit down alone at a
keyboard not my idea of fun so the first
thing i did that i bought some adwords
to see if people would be interested in
the book and then when they click on the
book on pretotyping i would say if you
give me the email i will send you a free
copy so i learned from the final right
how many people click on the add how
many people give me their email and so I
have an idea that there is a market that
people like the idea and then the next
step I did I wrote a Minimum Viable
booklet if you want a praetor book and
it’s I wrote in one week and I put it on
amazon and download to see people would
actually downloaded all of these are
steps they go you know one after the
other to validate the idea right for a
product to be successful so many things
have to go right right this would be the
right proud of the right price the right
marketing the right audience the
competition must not be doing there the
right things so the goal is to find out
how of these many things each of which
has to be right can I test right and
some of them are very easy to test you
know imagine you write the book and you
plan to sell it via Adwords or on amazon
well maybe you don’t have to ride the
food book and put it on amazon or a 72
page book and and to see if people
downloaded which shows me that there is
an interest while you were speaking
about as funny because I out thinking
when I am i launched my my company a few
years ago I launched a company called
blogosphere was a network of blogged and
then I sold him was three million half
unique visitors month and the funny
thing is that when i launched it ah
basically that I had nothing I had no
company had no blog said no bloggers but
i remember i wrote a post where I say
guys I will dude is and I will launch a
weblog network with 100 bloggers if you
want to if you interested just write me
but the people thought that behind was
something that was really nothing was
just you know a landing page basically
and then I got tons of emails but I
agree with you
that ethic is very important I mean to
them to match exactly what the
expectation and be very transparent
that’s right and of course you cannot
use this fake door approached by the way
this is only one of the many many
pretotyping techniques try that’s a very
nice quick and easy one you cannot use
it in all situation another favorite
story of mine another pretotyping
technique technique is called the
mechanical turk and the best way to
explain is an example that IBM did many
years ago they wanted to do speech to
text because they figure 30 years ago
most people did not type on computers so
they thought well we cannot sell
personal computers if we cannot people
cannot speak into that so they would
have taken many many years and tens of
millions in development the technology
wasn’t there yet one could argue even
today it’s not working very well so what
did they do they pretended they built a
prototype they put some body in the room
with a screen and a microphone and no
keyboard and they told them we built a
prototype of a speech to text
translation so speak into it any word
people spoke and the words appear on the
screen as if it was perfect speech to
text but they couldn’t be they didn’t
have didn’t build anything another
person in a room you know a stenographer
typist who’s listening through
headphones and we just type for them so
they pretended to have built this device
to see if and how people would use it
and what they learn was very interesting
is that people thought that everybody
would have thought of course we want to
speak to computers right who wants to
type but in reality if you try speaking
to a computer for several hours a day
your throat gets or the room gets very
loud imagine everybody at starbucks
talking so what they’ve learned without
building anything with a prototype is
that the demand and the idea of the
speech attacks being great actually when
you shot in practice is not that great
could you elaborate more Albert on other
pretotyping techniques so Minimum Viable
Product first that it reminds me of Eric
Ries Lean Startup he is always talking
about only
is a technique Mechanical Turk at second
one Oh what else so we have the fake
door by the way I another entrepreneur
named jesse helms i think invented that
term and we liked it fake door it sounds
so really on see if people knock before
you actually build something behind it
MVP actually you have to build something
that an MVP has to be viable and a
product so you would agree that the the
palm pilot the piece of wood critter
that is not viable not a product and
also what IBM built unless they plan to
put little typists into boxes was not a
really a viable product who’s more of a
test another favorite example of mine is
Tesla I don’t know if Tesla’s as famous
in europe you know the the electric car
company as it is here but yellow mascot
he’s a great guy i mean so what they did
what they did is well now how do we
start the car company how do we know
that people would even buy the first car
was a Sportster write a two seater that
cost 100 nine thousand dollars what do
most car companies do they go to a car
show they build a car and ask people
would you buy it and then people say yes
and then the build you know 10,000 of
them and then then that’d be failures
like I don’t know I’m not gonna name
names right every time I mention a car
somebody said I had one of those I loved
it though what did he learn master he
took an existing body lotus elise he
took off the you know the the shell
right it took off the engine and you
replace it with an electric engine and
it could his own body on it and then he
didn’t go and ask people would you buy
this he actually asked people if you
like this you give me a five thousand
dollar deposit and I will put you on a
waiting list now do you see the
difference between this to most people
that asking is good market research no
and that’s how you end up with products
that you pass all the market research
test but nobody then buys imagine going
to the bank and say hey people like this
car ninety-eight percent versus going to
the banker in
with a sheet of hay here are seven
hundred people who gave me a
five-thousand-dollar deposits $5,000 to
get on the waiting list for the car that
is very strong evidence also for
investors is very important because you
showed traction you show that there is a
very market there so it is easier to get
investing in investing and also is a
Kickstarter Indiana is having big
success because is engaging immediately
the users or the potential buyers from
the day one okay so that very
interesting yeah kickstart is a great
way to prototype to play the type in
idea you know that’s real evidence that
somebody wants what you are building
yeah in Europe I think they will launch
now they didn’t start yet because
crowdfunding is still big problem in
your butt in u.s. is going really strong
I I just would like you you to elaborate
more on these pretotyping techniques
because I think they very very useful
for everyone doing business and so many
times as you say we lose money we lose
time and we get a lot of failures and we
could avoid that we with the right
pretotyping approach so what else other
techniques yeah I think since we’re both
Italian this is my favorite example Mac
spaghetti right so we all know McDonald
famous for you know burgers at some
point that the idea for Mac spaghetti
now I will not go into actually what
happened there but we actually work with
McDonald with some prototypes with them
and a I thought they were gonna be
offended but actually loved the example
so let’s assume you’re a mcdonald and
you want to offer mac spaghetti what are
your pretotyping techniques we do this
actually in our workshops what’s the
simplest thing that you could do well
you don’t have to cook any faster you
put it on the menu and then when people
come in the store they look at it and
say i would like mac spaghetti that
tells if there is a level of interest
right if nobody asks for it you don’t
even bother cooking it right so when
people ask you i would like to order mac
spaghetti first you say are you crazy no
you would say okay I’m sorry you know
where this is just a market test but
here’s a coupon please order anything
else we’re just trying to see if there
is an interest so this is a first
pretotyping technique a fake door the
other thing that a lot of companies even
you know especially large companies do
they have an idea and the launch it say
in all the stores and for a long time so
one of the praetor typing techniques
will we recommend is called the
one-night stand right if you have an
idea like Mac spaghetti first you test
if there is any interest but then you
want to see what people come back so you
tryna small number of stores right and
this time if every time somebody orders
it you make a note and you see how many
people you ask it have you ordered it
before because you want to find out if
people will order it more than once
right you can be really misled by it by
a great marketing campaign right I can
do a great marketing campaign people are
going to try my products but then what
if they don’t come back so we break
things into initial level of interest
aisle I an ongoing level of interest you
can test the initial level of interest
with a fake door just put it on the menu
and see people ordered for the ongoing
level of interest you you must actually
cook some pasta hopefully you don’t
overcook it you want it al dente and you
run the experiment for say two months
but just do it in a few stores and the
mistakes a lot of people do is they they
think they’re big they think that right
so they do this big launches and then
have big failures so start small and
then scale it if it works and if you
have the evidence already that it will
work that’s right because you know all
my presentation start with the law of
failure and the truth is that most new
products fail right and the more
innovative they are the greater the
chances of failure are now it goes from
eighty percent to ninety-five percent
chance of failure depending how not how
new and different it is so I always go
on the assumption when I do a test my
goal is not to prove that my ideas right
is to prove that it’s wrong and this
sounds strange I but it’s like if you go
in a court of law you have to prove that
you’re innocent you’re innocent until
proven guilty but because most products
fail you have to start with the
assumption that this product will fail
but let me see if by any chance
it’s the right product and it’s a very
different mindset but I believe it’s the
right one to two to take about a couple
of question more then I let you go and
the first one is do you have any tools
digital tools that you suggest or
recommend for prototyping I mean in
prototyping everyone suggests i don’t
know wireframing platforms like I don’t
know balsamic or this kind of platform
where you can create a mock-up or
something like that is for pretotyping
do you see anything that can be useful
you know because you can please attack
anything from a book right to a a new
car I think people usually find out
their imagination but what typically
happens I tell them what what’s your
product and then ask him how would you
print a bit and they give me an idea and
typically when we work with them in
question we come back with something
simpler right so for example with the
mac spaghetti example the first thing
people would say is all we just do it in
two stores and I tell them well can you
do it without cooking any past and then
the thing for a while and they say oh
yeah we just put it on the menu because
right there isn’t that initial level of
interest the ongoing level of interest
is also not going to be there so there
are tools and in the book we discuss
several of them they’re definitely tools
for metrics but every case we find is a
little unique and there is a very
beautiful creature type right in every
large product inside there is a very
clever preeto time well almost all the
time so a better to get pretotyping is
possible to download it from the website
PDF in which is in english and other
translations I know that are coming
other way to connect with the praetor
tech pretotyping movement yes so first
good news we are at I wrote the book in
english and then much to my surprise
people started to do translation some of
them didn’t ask me say hey i have a
spanish translation and now a japanese
and french translation in the work and
Leonardo jan grand own italy did an
italian translation which
I speak Italian well but I’ve been in
the US long enough i canna write it well
but it’s fun because I read it and
actually like it i could have written
with the same language myself so for all
the material including some videos where
explains all of these ideas just go to
frito typing or type prototype into
google or pretotyping and my official
website is free to type labs com and
then the stones tons of free material
and much more to come especially in
Europe now that you have a lot of people
getting busy there excellent Alberto
Savoia thank you so much pretotyping
guys go there have a look really tone
some useful tips and interesting stuff
to to read them to absorb better thanks
so much and it’s been a lot of fun ciao Marco grazie may you find the right it
founder of the tech alchemist hello and
today here with me Alberto Savoia from
San Francisco you dare Alberto now the
interview Oh what of you right Alberto
thank you so much for being here today
and it’s always great to to see some
Italians doing great things all over the
world and you are one of those people
that I really appreciate I’ve been
discovering your work recently but I was
really fascinating but your pretotyping
not prototyping but pretotyping work
which is a it’s now an e-book but i
would say can or maybe is or will become
a movement so i think it’s very
interesting for everyone doing business
and so I want to understand it be more
but first I would like to understand
your story because you’ve been working
google really in the beginning and it’s
always very intriguing you know for for
businesses understand what was Google in
the beginning so how did you start there
well I i was born in Rome Italy but when
i visited California and Silicon Valley
I realized that you know just like there
are men who say they’re born in a
woman’s body or vice versa you know I
think I was a Silicon Valley person born
in a Italian body so when i arrived in
Silicon Valley I thought this is the
place for me and I went for a vacation
and then I decided to to stay so over
the years I was always interested in
programming and technology have been
very lucky ended up at Sun Microsystems
in the early days and had a good career
there and then i left i did a startup
that went very well and so after we saw
that startup i thought what am I going
to do and the some of my friends were at
Google so i went there and had an
interview there probably the toughest
interview job interview of my life very
technical the still do that and and i
was fortunate enough after three months
they said there is this little idea we
want to do call
Edwards and they wanted to the same
senior supervision or adult supervision
and I never kind of saw myself as adult
supervision but I kind of accepted the
role and that happened to be at the time
that AdWords was launching so even
though of course it’s the work of many
many more people and I was glad to be
there at a crucial time in you know in a
product that makes billions each quarter
just curious and then I wanna talk about
pretotyping but how was working on such
an amazing successful product which was
in the end AdWords I mean is that one of
the most interesting and he’s a huge
business for for google but it was
really an amazing invention and then
everything started out out of it I mean
been there from the beginning on this
kind of product well at the time you
never realize it right because at the
time Google was still in just one
building there were you know there were
two senior managers myself and the vp of
engineering in engineering and we we
knew it was going to be big I don’t
think even the biggest optimists thought
it was going to be this big and last
this long I think the credit goes to the
people actually have taken this initial
product which was you know a first
product and actually have grown it to
scale to the scale that it has now but
at the time you don’t realize hey I just
remember a lot of work just being busy
you don’t even think about ten years in
the future just trying to make sure that
the whole system is launched and it
doesn’t crash all right so um I better
let’s talk about pretotyping um I was
preparing the chart with you’d interview
with you and I was talking with a friend
and say uh I’m going to do an interview
with did this man he’s writing and
talking about pretotyping and my friends
say our prototyping yes okay pro Tavia
say no pretotyping and it’s something
different you know so first of all I can
you explain our our tech alchemist
people what is preto typing all about
right so when you think everybody knows
proto
I think right and the the example that I
use is that when the inventor of the
palm pilot Jeff Hawkins had the first
idea for the Palm Pilot he he didn’t
jump immediately and start building
something right with wires and batteries
and you know and then you know and
displays why because his previous
company startup called a grid will
computers spent years and millions of
dollars tens of millions of dollars to
develop a product then when they
launched it nobody actually bought it it
was the wrong form factor right and the
built the prototype so what Jeff Hawkins
did he actually took and if you really
see the book or the video actually have
images of that took a block of wood he
put the paper sleeve on it with the user
interface for the what became the pump a
load and he pretended to use it right so
you know let’s assume we want to
schedule a meeting i would say Marco you
want to meet next week yeah you say yes
and then I pull out this block of hood
and I kind of pretend that it’s working
and and then if it does work after a
while I realized you know if this was
more than a block of wood if this
actually worked I would use it all the
time so that was what problem with his
other product he built it had all the
functionality that he wasn’t using it so
the word prototype initially started as
pretend attack you pretend to have built
something to see if you would actually
use it because as you know most new
products fail and most new products fail
not because they’re not built right
right very few startups fail because
they cannot build a product they fail
because they didn’t build a product that
the market is interested in you know
even the people who build it for
themselves they wouldn’t use it so it’s
very hard to Gordon who is right to say
that with prototyping I actually have to
build something so I don’t know if I
want to do a prototype of a mobile phone
I basically have to try to build at
least a basic mobile phone and then say
okay this is the prototype of my mobile
phone with pretotyping I can maybe start
with
something very simple you know or a
piece of wood or piece of metal and
pretend that this is the mobile phone
and explain the features that it should
have to look like i’ll give you an
example right still related to the phone
clearly pretotyping only makes sense
when you don’t know if there is an
interest but now we know that people
will buy phones we know they’ll buy
tablets right so you know right now you
don’t need to pre the type of phone
anymore but maybe you have a new idea
for if mobile app so what you need to do
in that case right you could spend weeks
or month building the perfect app let’s
say one of my favorite was called do we
do at Google in this workshops called
Park jerk you know sometimes you find
people who take two parking spots so you
want to do it an application maybe you
were you take the photos and then you
publicly humiliate them on a Forex a
look at how these idiot parks what and
actually this was developed so one thing
is well I can start writing the
application taking the photos creating
the back end the database upload
download do all the sign ups and all the
stuff or and then maybe I figure out I’m
not going to bother with it or maybe you
just pretend it right maybe you draw a
the user interface on a piece of paper
you take a photo with the phone and then
as you walk around you pretend that you
actually have this application and the
thing that you need to test the most is
would I actually use this because if you
don’t use it then it’s a lappy other
people who use it and if you look at
most of the apps in the App Store you
know ninety-five percent of them don’t
make any money right there but just a
few downloads can you do pretotyping
only with you suggested you pretotyping
only with let’s say analog tool or there
are also digital tools that you can use
to create some to prototype your idea
there are some some digital’s but by the
way preeto tapping the slogan is make
sure you’re building the right it before
you build the tried and again you know
the right it could even be a restaurant
right you know I want to do it in in
fact I have an idea for a restaurant
called a pasta note a pass and pass that
I hey why not have a place where you
know you combine these Spanish tell
Game two pasta top of us is great
there’s a change in civ better but so
what but you know most restaurants fail
they fail within a year so I thought
well the thing that maybe I want to do
is to how can I test if there is an
interest for it you know instead of
getting at least 42 years in a
restaurant maybe I can advertise maybe I
can pretend that this restaurant exists
maybe I can have one of those food
trucks there are many ways that are
before you you go for the whole product
there are many tests that you can do one
example you could buy Adwords let’s
assume that I want to write a book as I
use in my book example enough for people
who like to watch squirrels right we
know that there is a market for
birdwatchers but maybe there are people
that like to watch squirrels how do I
know if these people are around there i
can do some online research but perhaps
i can go to Google Adwords I by the
keyboard squirrels and when people type
squirrel I can show an ad for my book
you know the complete squirrel Watchers
ah even though maybe I have not written
the book yet this is a technique called
a fake door right so you don’t actually
have to build the product now clearly
you need to be careful with the ethical
considerations because you know you want
people to click and you can tell them
look I’m thinking of writing this book
if you’re interested give me your email
and I will actually send you a free copy
when it’s out doing a market desk now so
what happens is you know if you have to
write a book it would take months right
and most books like most apps like most
businesses like most startups like most
restaurants like most movies are not
successful not because they’re not well
done in most cases but because there
isn’t a market for that so if you do
this is a small number of people pays a
very small penalty you know by say you
know through the fake door by clicking
on it but the the public at large gets
the reward that people do not spend time
building products or applications that
are wasted and yeah and then the price
of failure and the cost of failure for
you is anyway very low and you can felt
very fast and change and so it is very
smart absolutely and that’s what
done with my book pretotyping I gave
hundreds of talks on pretotyping at
Google people loved it and they said I
were to write a book and I thought oh my
god write a book it’s gonna take months
you know you have to sit down alone at a
keyboard not my idea of fun so the first
thing i did that i bought some adwords
to see if people would be interested in
the book and then when they click on the
book on pretotyping i would say if you
give me the email i will send you a free
copy so i learned from the final right
how many people click on the add how
many people give me their email and so I
have an idea that there is a market that
people like the idea and then the next
step I did I wrote a Minimum Viable
booklet if you want a praetor book and
it’s I wrote in one week and I put it on
amazon and download to see people would
actually downloaded all of these are
steps they go you know one after the
other to validate the idea right for a
product to be successful so many things
have to go right right this would be the
right proud of the right price the right
marketing the right audience the
competition must not be doing there the
right things so the goal is to find out
how of these many things each of which
has to be right can I test right and
some of them are very easy to test you
know imagine you write the book and you
plan to sell it via Adwords or on amazon
well maybe you don’t have to ride the
food book and put it on amazon or a 72
page book and and to see if people
downloaded which shows me that there is
an interest while you were speaking
about as funny because I out thinking
when I am i launched my my company a few
years ago I launched a company called
blogosphere was a network of blogged and
then I sold him was three million half
unique visitors month and the funny
thing is that when i launched it ah
basically that I had nothing I had no
company had no blog said no bloggers but
i remember i wrote a post where I say
guys I will dude is and I will launch a
weblog network with 100 bloggers if you
want to if you interested just write me
but the people thought that behind was
something that was really nothing was
just you know a landing page basically
and then I got tons of emails but I
agree with you
that ethic is very important I mean to
them to match exactly what the
expectation and be very transparent
that’s right and of course you cannot
use this fake door approached by the way
this is only one of the many many
pretotyping techniques try that’s a very
nice quick and easy one you cannot use
it in all situation another favorite
story of mine another pretotyping
technique technique is called the
mechanical turk and the best way to
explain is an example that IBM did many
years ago they wanted to do speech to
text because they figure 30 years ago
most people did not type on computers so
they thought well we cannot sell
personal computers if we cannot people
cannot speak into that so they would
have taken many many years and tens of
millions in development the technology
wasn’t there yet one could argue even
today it’s not working very well so what
did they do they pretended they built a
prototype they put some body in the room
with a screen and a microphone and no
keyboard and they told them we built a
prototype of a speech to text
translation so speak into it any word
people spoke and the words appear on the
screen as if it was perfect speech to
text but they couldn’t be they didn’t
have didn’t build anything another
person in a room you know a stenographer
typist who’s listening through
headphones and we just type for them so
they pretended to have built this device
to see if and how people would use it
and what they learn was very interesting
is that people thought that everybody
would have thought of course we want to
speak to computers right who wants to
type but in reality if you try speaking
to a computer for several hours a day
your throat gets or the room gets very
loud imagine everybody at starbucks
talking so what they’ve learned without
building anything with a prototype is
that the demand and the idea of the
speech attacks being great actually when
you shot in practice is not that great
could you elaborate more Albert on other
pretotyping techniques so Minimum Viable
Product first that it reminds me of Eric
Ries Lean Startup he is always talking
about only
is a technique Mechanical Turk at second
one Oh what else so we have the fake
door by the way I another entrepreneur
named jesse helms i think invented that
term and we liked it fake door it sounds
so really on see if people knock before
you actually build something behind it
MVP actually you have to build something
that an MVP has to be viable and a
product so you would agree that the the
palm pilot the piece of wood critter
that is not viable not a product and
also what IBM built unless they plan to
put little typists into boxes was not a
really a viable product who’s more of a
test another favorite example of mine is
Tesla I don’t know if Tesla’s as famous
in europe you know the the electric car
company as it is here but yellow mascot
he’s a great guy i mean so what they did
what they did is well now how do we
start the car company how do we know
that people would even buy the first car
was a Sportster write a two seater that
cost 100 nine thousand dollars what do
most car companies do they go to a car
show they build a car and ask people
would you buy it and then people say yes
and then the build you know 10,000 of
them and then then that’d be failures
like I don’t know I’m not gonna name
names right every time I mention a car
somebody said I had one of those I loved
it though what did he learn master he
took an existing body lotus elise he
took off the you know the the shell
right it took off the engine and you
replace it with an electric engine and
it could his own body on it and then he
didn’t go and ask people would you buy
this he actually asked people if you
like this you give me a five thousand
dollar deposit and I will put you on a
waiting list now do you see the
difference between this to most people
that asking is good market research no
and that’s how you end up with products
that you pass all the market research
test but nobody then buys imagine going
to the bank and say hey people like this
car ninety-eight percent versus going to
the banker in
with a sheet of hay here are seven
hundred people who gave me a
five-thousand-dollar deposits $5,000 to
get on the waiting list for the car that
is very strong evidence also for
investors is very important because you
showed traction you show that there is a
very market there so it is easier to get
investing in investing and also is a
Kickstarter Indiana is having big
success because is engaging immediately
the users or the potential buyers from
the day one okay so that very
interesting yeah kickstart is a great
way to prototype to play the type in
idea you know that’s real evidence that
somebody wants what you are building
yeah in Europe I think they will launch
now they didn’t start yet because
crowdfunding is still big problem in
your butt in u.s. is going really strong
I I just would like you you to elaborate
more on these pretotyping techniques
because I think they very very useful
for everyone doing business and so many
times as you say we lose money we lose
time and we get a lot of failures and we
could avoid that we with the right
pretotyping approach so what else other
techniques yeah I think since we’re both
Italian this is my favorite example Mac
spaghetti right so we all know McDonald
famous for you know burgers at some
point that the idea for Mac spaghetti
now I will not go into actually what
happened there but we actually work with
McDonald with some prototypes with them
and a I thought they were gonna be
offended but actually loved the example
so let’s assume you’re a mcdonald and
you want to offer mac spaghetti what are
your pretotyping techniques we do this
actually in our workshops what’s the
simplest thing that you could do well
you don’t have to cook any faster you
put it on the menu and then when people
come in the store they look at it and
say i would like mac spaghetti that
tells if there is a level of interest
right if nobody asks for it you don’t
even bother cooking it right so when
people ask you i would like to order mac
spaghetti first you say are you crazy no
you would say okay I’m sorry you know
where this is just a market test but
here’s a coupon please order anything
else we’re just trying to see if there
is an interest so this is a first
pretotyping technique a fake door the
other thing that a lot of companies even
you know especially large companies do
they have an idea and the launch it say
in all the stores and for a long time so
one of the praetor typing techniques
will we recommend is called the
one-night stand right if you have an
idea like Mac spaghetti first you test
if there is any interest but then you
want to see what people come back so you
tryna small number of stores right and
this time if every time somebody orders
it you make a note and you see how many
people you ask it have you ordered it
before because you want to find out if
people will order it more than once
right you can be really misled by it by
a great marketing campaign right I can
do a great marketing campaign people are
going to try my products but then what
if they don’t come back so we break
things into initial level of interest
aisle I an ongoing level of interest you
can test the initial level of interest
with a fake door just put it on the menu
and see people ordered for the ongoing
level of interest you you must actually
cook some pasta hopefully you don’t
overcook it you want it al dente and you
run the experiment for say two months
but just do it in a few stores and the
mistakes a lot of people do is they they
think they’re big they think that right
so they do this big launches and then
have big failures so start small and
then scale it if it works and if you
have the evidence already that it will
work that’s right because you know all
my presentation start with the law of
failure and the truth is that most new
products fail right and the more
innovative they are the greater the
chances of failure are now it goes from
eighty percent to ninety-five percent
chance of failure depending how not how
new and different it is so I always go
on the assumption when I do a test my
goal is not to prove that my ideas right
is to prove that it’s wrong and this
sounds strange I but it’s like if you go
in a court of law you have to prove that
you’re innocent you’re innocent until
proven guilty but because most products
fail you have to start with the
assumption that this product will fail
but let me see if by any chance
it’s the right product and it’s a very
different mindset but I believe it’s the
right one to two to take about a couple
of question more then I let you go and
the first one is do you have any tools
digital tools that you suggest or
recommend for prototyping I mean in
prototyping everyone suggests i don’t
know wireframing platforms like I don’t
know balsamic or this kind of platform
where you can create a mock-up or
something like that is for pretotyping
do you see anything that can be useful
you know because you can please attack
anything from a book right to a a new
car I think people usually find out
their imagination but what typically
happens I tell them what what’s your
product and then ask him how would you
print a bit and they give me an idea and
typically when we work with them in
question we come back with something
simpler right so for example with the
mac spaghetti example the first thing
people would say is all we just do it in
two stores and I tell them well can you
do it without cooking any past and then
the thing for a while and they say oh
yeah we just put it on the menu because
right there isn’t that initial level of
interest the ongoing level of interest
is also not going to be there so there
are tools and in the book we discuss
several of them they’re definitely tools
for metrics but every case we find is a
little unique and there is a very
beautiful creature type right in every
large product inside there is a very
clever preeto time well almost all the
time so a better to get pretotyping is
possible to download it from the website
PDF in which is in english and other
translations I know that are coming
other way to connect with the praetor
tech pretotyping movement yes so first
good news we are at I wrote the book in
english and then much to my surprise
people started to do translation some of
them didn’t ask me say hey i have a
spanish translation and now a japanese
and french translation in the work and
Leonardo jan grand own italy did an
italian translation which
I speak Italian well but I’ve been in
the US long enough i canna write it well
but it’s fun because I read it and
actually like it i could have written
with the same language myself so for all
the material including some videos where
explains all of these ideas just go to
frito typing or type prototype into
google or pretotyping and my official
website is free to type labs com and
then the stones tons of free material
and much more to come especially in
Europe now that you have a lot of people
getting busy there excellent Alberto
Savoia thank you so much pretotyping
guys go there have a look really tone
some useful tips and interesting stuff
to to read them to absorb better thanks
so much and it’s been a lot of fun ciao Marco grazie may you find the right it
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