Quick Intro: Make sure you are building The Right It before you build It right.
- Most new products and innovations fail in the market – regardless of how well they are executed. They fail because they are not The Right It – they are not products that the market actually wants.
- While working at Google, I developed pretotyping: a set of techniques, tools and metrics to help determine if a new product is The Right It, and to do so quickly, objectively and reliably.
- People loved the concept of pretotyping. More importantly, it worked great for them – and I loved teaching it and coaching companies on how to practice it on their own new products and innovations.
- The demand for pretotyping help was such, that in 2012 I took a leave from Google to co-found PretotypeLabs in order to teach and coach pretotyping full-time.
- This video of one of my seminars (recorded at Stanford) or my book Pretotype It (PDF, Kindle) is great way to learn more me, The Right It and pretotyping.
- I would love an opportunity to work with you and your organization to help you find The Right It – your next successful breakthrough product. You can hire me to speak, teach or work with your team to help you "make sure that you are building The Right It before you build It right."
Not-so-quick Intro
At the beginning of my career, my focus was on building things right: high-quality, high-reliability, etc.
As an early employee and engineering executive at companies like Google and Sun Microsystems, as well as the two startups I co-founded, I led the development of several products, such as Google AdWords in 2001, that became very successful and won all kinds of awards.
But not all products I worked on were successful. Some, despite nearly perfect execution and very-high quality, failed in the market. In fact, some of the best executed, tested and polished products failed, while others that were put together more hastily and haphazardly became huge successes. By looking at the market, I realized that this is not the exception, but the rule.
This led me to formulate The Law of Failure: "Most new products and innovations fail – regardless of how well they are executed."
Between 2008 and 2012, on my second tour of duty at Google as Engineering Director and Innovation Agitator, I had the opportunity to study why and how most new products fail (including a number Google's own products) despite having world-class resources, talent and exposure. I came to the realization that building a product right, is important, but not nearly as important as making sure that you are building the right product in the first place: If you don't have The Right It – a product that the market actually wants – there's no amount of effort in development, marketing and sales that will make that product successful.
Since most new products (80-90%) fail in the market, the next obvious question was: "How can one know if the product they plan to build is The Right It? One that the market will actually want." Some well known and widely practiced techniques (e.g., focus groups and traditional prototyping) help to some extent, but they have a very high rate of false positives (e.g., focus groups like the idea but the market rejects it, and most prototypes take too long to develop and often do not help in determining actual market interest.)
Eventually, I came up with a set of techniques, tools and metrics to help organizations test – in the quickest, most objective and most reliable way possible – if the product they plan to build should be built; i.e., if it has good chances of being successful in the market, and I named this set of techniques pretotyping.
The mission and goal of pretotyping is simple: Make sure you are building The Right It before you build It right.
I started practicing, coaching and giving talks on pretotyping at Google, and the response was enthusiastic. Before I knew it, I was teaching pretotyping not only to Googlers, but to some of the largest Google customers as well. Within a few months, I became one of Google's most sought after and in-demand speakers. A few months later, I gave a seminar at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and had the same enthusiastic reception.
In 2011, I was giving at least one or two seminars or workshops on pretotyping each week. And, due to popular demand, I wrote a book on the subject, Pretotype It.
In 2012, prompted by the enthusiastic reception and demand for pretotyping, I decided to take a leave from Google (for the second time in my career) to co-found PretotypeLabs and focus exclusively on teaching and coaching companies on pretotyping. While I still work closely with Google and Stanford (I am giving pretotyping seminars and workshops at Google almost every week) this gives me the opportunity to help a broad range of companies.
These days, my time is spread evenly between coaching companies on specific projects (i.e., helping them test if their idea is The Right It), giving talks, seminars and workshops, and continuing to study, research and write on pretotyping and the elusive search for The Right It.
If you are wondering if your next product is The Right It, feel free to contact me. I'd love to hear about it and possibly help you answer that question.
Alberto
P.S. In a way, my career has always been focused on testing. At first, I focused on testing to make sure that products were built right, now my focus in on testing to make sure that the products being built are the right products. Too many websites are built for 100,000s of users that never materialize. Too many widgets are build for 100,000s of buyers that never show up. Too many books, movies, etc., are released to a market that proves indifferent to them. Quality, reliability, scalability, etc., are still critically important attributes for a product success, but they should be addressed and tested after you are confident that the product is The Right It.
As an early employee and engineering executive at companies like Google and Sun Microsystems, as well as the two startups I co-founded, I led the development of several products, such as Google AdWords in 2001, that became very successful and won all kinds of awards.
But not all products I worked on were successful. Some, despite nearly perfect execution and very-high quality, failed in the market. In fact, some of the best executed, tested and polished products failed, while others that were put together more hastily and haphazardly became huge successes. By looking at the market, I realized that this is not the exception, but the rule.
This led me to formulate The Law of Failure: "Most new products and innovations fail – regardless of how well they are executed."
Between 2008 and 2012, on my second tour of duty at Google as Engineering Director and Innovation Agitator, I had the opportunity to study why and how most new products fail (including a number Google's own products) despite having world-class resources, talent and exposure. I came to the realization that building a product right, is important, but not nearly as important as making sure that you are building the right product in the first place: If you don't have The Right It – a product that the market actually wants – there's no amount of effort in development, marketing and sales that will make that product successful.
Since most new products (80-90%) fail in the market, the next obvious question was: "How can one know if the product they plan to build is The Right It? One that the market will actually want." Some well known and widely practiced techniques (e.g., focus groups and traditional prototyping) help to some extent, but they have a very high rate of false positives (e.g., focus groups like the idea but the market rejects it, and most prototypes take too long to develop and often do not help in determining actual market interest.)
Eventually, I came up with a set of techniques, tools and metrics to help organizations test – in the quickest, most objective and most reliable way possible – if the product they plan to build should be built; i.e., if it has good chances of being successful in the market, and I named this set of techniques pretotyping.
The mission and goal of pretotyping is simple: Make sure you are building The Right It before you build It right.
I started practicing, coaching and giving talks on pretotyping at Google, and the response was enthusiastic. Before I knew it, I was teaching pretotyping not only to Googlers, but to some of the largest Google customers as well. Within a few months, I became one of Google's most sought after and in-demand speakers. A few months later, I gave a seminar at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and had the same enthusiastic reception.
In 2011, I was giving at least one or two seminars or workshops on pretotyping each week. And, due to popular demand, I wrote a book on the subject, Pretotype It.
In 2012, prompted by the enthusiastic reception and demand for pretotyping, I decided to take a leave from Google (for the second time in my career) to co-found PretotypeLabs and focus exclusively on teaching and coaching companies on pretotyping. While I still work closely with Google and Stanford (I am giving pretotyping seminars and workshops at Google almost every week) this gives me the opportunity to help a broad range of companies.
These days, my time is spread evenly between coaching companies on specific projects (i.e., helping them test if their idea is The Right It), giving talks, seminars and workshops, and continuing to study, research and write on pretotyping and the elusive search for The Right It.
If you are wondering if your next product is The Right It, feel free to contact me. I'd love to hear about it and possibly help you answer that question.
Alberto
P.S. In a way, my career has always been focused on testing. At first, I focused on testing to make sure that products were built right, now my focus in on testing to make sure that the products being built are the right products. Too many websites are built for 100,000s of users that never materialize. Too many widgets are build for 100,000s of buyers that never show up. Too many books, movies, etc., are released to a market that proves indifferent to them. Quality, reliability, scalability, etc., are still critically important attributes for a product success, but they should be addressed and tested after you are confident that the product is The Right It.
