Failures may be inevitable stepping stones of the path to innovation & learning is the spirit to make the journey worth wise.
On Feb. 2, 2021 Starship Serial Number 9 (SN9) completed SpaceX’s 2nd flight test ending with another spectacular firework. It’s still very impressive. Not only because they’re pushing the final frontier forward, but also a few really walk the talk. Even in the valley, most people are still more comfortable to play safely. It’s just a human nature. But as Jeff Bezos said “Failure and innovation are inseparable twins”, what could we learn from these “spectacular failures” 🤔?
You Either Gain Something Or Learn Sometimes
It sure takes courage to charge into unknown. To make it easier, you can switch to the experimental mindset. Instead of over engineering for a perfect solution, you can just prototype a way out of ambiguity. So even when it “fails”, you at least find one of “10K ways that won’t work” as Edison framed it.
To do it properly, you should consider what you want to learn ahead. For example, two distinct types of prototypes are typically needed & in that order.
- A design prototype helps to test & learn if an idea is the right thing to build. For examples automakers spend millions to build concept cars to “test the water”. Of cause, there are also/mainly other marketing goals, such as branding.
- An engineering prototype helps to figure out & validate how to build something right. For examples SpaceX launched SN8 & 9 to collect data to figure out how to build a vehicle to Mars for real. Bonus the fireworks are spectacular too 🎇.
Which Way To Prototype Forward?
Depending on the context & the goal, one prototype strategy can work better than others. In general, there are mainly 3 categories.
- Imaging the dream comes true: such as a mock press release, wireframe, mockup, storyboard, facade & etc. It’s pretty useful when what to be built is not very clear, because they make the ideas more concrete. Which make effective feedback easier. Remember “It’s not the customer’s job to know what they want” as Jobs said.
- DIY: such as a concierge service. You can provide the service or do the work by yourself. These are useful when you need to figure out how or where are the pain points. Also a beauty of such strategy is almost zero initial effort & lead time as there is not thing really to be built first. You can even create a playbook for others to do the jobs to scale it up a bit to collect more feedback.
- Working toys: e.g interactive mockups, simulators/emulators, engineering sample, MVP & etc. This’s a critical steps before building the version 1 product. Because it give you some confident on 2 critical hows:
- How useful is it to the real target users & will they actually use it?
- How should the product actually work & what should be better?
Cheaper, Faster & Easier Way To Prototype
Lucky us today, technology makes it increasing easier to prototype. That’s why a working prototype is almost the basic for any new venture in the valley. The game is how good/conniving the prototype, rather than just your presentation. So the question is how to get a “unfair advantage” in such games. You can get a head start by shifting more functionality/innovation toward SW defined. Which opens doors for you to prototype much cheaper, faster & easier than those still making their products in a monolithic & HW coupled way.
Taking smart car infotainment systems as an example, you may break it down to 3 layers of separation: apps, system, and virtual machines. If you architect them in the right way, you can do almost everything independent to HW, e.g. via a emulator. Which will create long term benefits when your SW continuously delivers values to users across models & years. This’s not a rocket science, but it does need extra effort & patience to build them in a right way. Whoever leaps forward to take the high road may, their products maybe 10x better & it’ll be very hard for others to catch up.
Full Disclosure
The opinions stated here are my own, not those of my company. They are most extrapolations from the news. I don’t have insider knowledge of those companies, nor an EV expert.
