The Prototype Fund Guide - AfCE...Demo / Explainer Video Marketing Video Wizard of Oz Competitor Research Wireframes Clickable App Prototype Category: Messaging & pricing Email with

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ThePrototype Fund GuideLean Experiments

Copyright 2021 © Academy for Corporate Entrepreneurship

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What type of experiment to run:

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What type of experiment to run:

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Table of ContentPhysical Prototype Fund MenuDigital Prototype Fund MenuWelcome to the Prototype Fund Guide

Lean Experiments ExplainedWhy we experimentWho will (help) experimentHow we experimentExperiment Journey

The Tools

Category: ProblemFocus GroupsProblem Interview

Category: CustomerFake DoorOnline Ads

Category: SolutionComprehension TestingCard SortingConcierge TestingLanding PageFacebook Page / LinkedIn Company PageSolution InterviewPaper TestDemo / Explainer VideoMarketing VideoWizard of OzCompetitor ResearchWireframesClickable App Prototype

Category: Messaging & pricingEmail with Call to Action or Landing PageTear-off FlyerDry-Wallet

Category: Usability (UX)Smoke Test (High Bar)Usability Testing

Category: Visualising / Selling the IdeaBrandingProduct Design Sketch360 Degree CAD ModelPhotorealistic Rendering

The Prototype FundSubmitting requests to the Prototype Fund Prototype Do’s and Don’ts

AppendixGDPR Compliance FAQ’sGlossary

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1. Product Design SketchWhat: Based on the submitted request form, product designers will produce a first impression sketch design of the product. Includes 1 iteration based on email or short phone call feedback with designer.Why: The designer’s illustration transforms your product idea into a product visualisation which can support customer interviews and experiments.

1a. Sketch (just follow the proposed design)What: Receive analogue / digital design drawings based on the information provided by the team through the request form and the quick call, which communicate a first impression of the design direction.Why: The designer‘s illustrations transform the team‘s ideas into a visualisation of their product. This gives you an initial idea of the direction the development can move into.Deliverables: • analogue / digital (coloured) design drawings (max. 3 images from different perspectives) • 1 simple iteration loop (small modifications without changing the concept, e.g. changing colours, size of parts, logo position etc.)Needed first: n/a

1b. Sketch • upgrade 1 (follow but challenge the design)What: Receive 1 additional concept (with a possible additional value) and a maximum of 3 analogue / digital design drawings.Why: The designer provides you an alternative solution based on his external view and experience from numerious projects which can make your product more desirable.Deliverables: • additional analogue / digital (coloured) design drawings (max. 3 images from different perspectives) • 1 simple iteration loop • short documentation explaining the designsNeeded first: 1a

1c. Sketch • upgrade 2 (create design principles)What: Receive 1 additional concept (a design principle) and a maximum of 3 analogue / digital design drawings.Why: A design principle/principle offers the option to apply a possible design key feature to other products in order to achieve a high recognition value and scalability within a product portfolio / family.Deliverables: • additional analogue and digital (coloured) design drawings (max. 3 images from different perspectives) • design principle illustrations • 1 simple iteration loop • short documentation documentNeeded first: 1a

₱ 200.00

₱ 100.00

₱ 100.00

Physical Prototype Fund Menu

2 business days

2 business days

2 business days

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2. 360 Degree Live ViewWhat: Receive a consultation and 2 iterations to create 360 degree live views of your product or key feature on your screen (Acrobat Reader DC) along with a 10-15 second MP4 animation clip.Why: A more interactive and detailed way to show off your key features (proportions and dimensions). Plug into explainer or marketing videos to help raise development funds.

2a. Extra consulting callWhat: Get a suggestion by the designer for the next steps which are necessary to meet your expectations.Why: An extra consulting call enables the designer to define the workscope which is necessary to achieve your desired results.Deliverables: • extra consulting callNeeded first: 1a, 1b or 1c

2b. 360 Degree CAD ModelWhat: Receive a simple (1 mono-part) surface and volume model as rotatable 3D CADfile. Its design is further elaborated in detail by formal variants and is based on the concept sketches (1a / 1b / 1c Product design sketch).Why: A digital 3D CAD-model provides improved three-dimensional impressions of the product’s structure and its formal aesthetic appearance. By a CAD-model, the product idea can be better evaluated and verified.Deliverables: • simple surface / volume CAD-model (monochrome) as 3D-PDF-file which allows a first all-round view of the product • 2 simple iteration loopsNeeded first: 1a, 1b or 1c and 2a

2c. 360 Degree CAD Model • upgrade 1What: Receive a semi-detailed (1 multi-part) surface and volume model as rotatable 3D CAD-file.Why: A semi-detailed multi-part 3D CAD-model offers you a more realistic impression. It can already slightly show the complexity and necessary number of parts with regards to later construction and production issues.Deliverables: • semi-detailed surface / volume CAD-model (monochrome) as 3D-PDF-file which allows a first all-round view of the product • 2 simple iteration loopsNeeded first: 1a, 1b or 1c, 2a and 2b

2d. 360 Degree CAD Model • upgrade 2What: Receive a detailed (1 assembly containing several single parts) surface and volume model as a rotatable 3D CAD-file.Why: A detailed 3D CAD assembly model offers you a more realistic impression and the option to receive an exploded view of your product. It can already slighly show the complexity and necessary number of parts with regards to later construction and production issues.Deliverables: • detailed surface / volume CAD-model (monochrome) as 3D-PDF-file which allows a first all-round view of the product • 2 simple iteration loopsNeeded first: 1a, 1b or 1c, 2a and 2b

2e. Extended Iteration LoopWhat: Get an extra modification for your 3D-model which is out of scope of the simple iteration loop which is included.Why: An extended iteration loop offers the opportunity to have another consultation of the team with the designer and results in modifications which can lead to an (aesthetic) optimisation of your idea.Deliverables: • optimised 3D-model due to extra iteration loopNeeded first: 1a, 1b or 1c, 2a and 2b

₱ 0.00

₱ 600.00

₱ 300.00

₱ 500.00

₱ 200.00


3 business days

2 business days

1 business day

2.5 business days

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3. Photorealistic RenderingWhat: Receive a consultation and 2 iterations so that the first impression can be further developed into a photorealistic visualisation of what your product could look like, represented by 2 high resolution renderings.Why: Show much deeper context around colours, materials, textures and dimensions of your product to demo the look and feel of a finished product.

3a. Photorealistic RenderingWhat: Receive a photorealistic rendering, including defined materials, colours and product graphics, which brings your idea to life.Why: A rendering enables you to show your product in form of a photorealistic image to your target group and potential investors in a pre-development stage.Deliverables: • 1 photorealistic rendering in a perspective view (in high resolution quality) of the product • 1 simple iteration loopNeeded first: 2c or higher

3b. Photorealistic Rendering • upgrade 1What: Receive 3 additional photorealistic renderings from chosen views (top, left / right side, bottom, front / back) based on consultation of the designer.Why: Different views of your product provide a better evaluation and comprehension of the product idea.Deliverables: • 3 additional views (in high resolution quality) of the product • 1 simple iteration loopNeeded first: 2c or higher and 3a

3c. Photorealistic Rendering • upgrade 2What: Receive a 360° rotating movie of your product.Why: A 360° movie of your product enables you and your target group to get a complete dynamic view of your product in a very convincing way.Deliverables: • 360° rotating movie of 4-5 seconds or a file customers can turn into an animation itself on a landing pageNeeded first: 2c or higher and 3a

₱ 400.00

₱ 200.00

₱ 400.00

4. 3D Print FileWhat: Leveraging the previous design work in order to generate a 3D Print File which you can send to a local 3D printer.Why: To have a file ready to be 3D printed.

4a. 3D Print FileWhat: If this is an option your team would like to explore please select option 2a first. The designer will then be able to discuss what would be required for your team to get a 3D Print File created and what limitations might be.Why: Have the option to 3D print a pretotype of your idea.Deliverables: • Depending on your team’s contextNeeded first: 2b or 2c or 2d

4b. 3D Print File • upgradeNeeded first: 4a

₱ N/A

₱ N/A


2 business days

1.5 business days

1.5 business days

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1. Logo DesignExperiment: AnyWhat: Get designers to produce a fitting logo for your project.Why: A logo gives your idea & team an identity that can be used in many of your experiments. Deliverables: • 2 logo designs will be presented• 1 Iteration of the chosen design• 1 JPEG file of the final logo for future use

1b. Logo Design UpgradeExperiment: AnyWhat: Get further iterations on your logo.Why: If you pivot your idea or need to add a tag line or if your original request requires more iterations. Deliverable:• Up to 2 further iterations on your logo

2. Domain and EmailExperiment: AnyWhat: Procure a new domain and email that reflects your team name or project. Use https://www.nameql.com/ to check the availability first.Why: A domain and email allows you to communicate about your idea with externals, whilst protecting your corporate employer brand and without worrying about hosting issues. Deliverables:• 1 new website domain - as per the availability (1 year)• 1 email address with the new domain (1 year)• Username / Password and instructions to set up the email

3. Email with Call to Action (CTA)Experiment: Email with Call to Action or Landing PageWhat: Test interest with a defined audience by sending an email with a call to action to register their interest. Why: This helps you to access Beta users quickly from an existing channel. Deliverables:• Attractive design for your call to action with 1 iteration• Sending of email from a third party email system • Simple analysis of engagement

4. Survey(s)Experiment: Feedback Survey, Customer Satisfaction Surveys, NPS Survey, Concierge TestingWhat: Submit the questions you want to ask your customers and get a survey on typeform. You can send this survey to your customers and get answers for your questions.Why: Survey is a good way to get broad info about your problem area and zoom deeper into assumptions. You can define your customer segments and get an early feedback from them. Deliverables:• An attractive survey hosted on Typeform • Up to 10 questions / fields• A link that can be sent to customers• Reporting of survey result

₱ 60.00

₱ 40.00

₱ 40.00

₱ 60.00

₱ 80.00

5. Flyer / BrochureExperiment: Email with CTA or Landing Page, Tear-off Flyer, Dry Wallet, Marketing CampaignWhat: Create a nicely designed one page Flyer / Brochure / Infographic around your targeted problem and solution. Why: Get feedback on your idea, also in an offline environment.Deliverables:• Design for brochure in PDF (max. 3 iterations)

₱ 40.00

Digital Prototype Fund Menu

3 business days

no set timeline

1 business day

3 business days

2 business days

3 business days

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6b. Landing Page Upgrade (Version 2)Experiment: Fake Door, Online Ads, Comprehension Testing, Email with CTA or Landing Page, Dry Wallet, Smoke Test (High Bar)What: Create a live website (landing page) to showcase your idea. Start with a simple version 1 and then add more functionality with versions 2 and 3 when and as you need them. Includes Google Analystics and GDPR Compliance.Why: Landing Pages allow you to test if the problem your solution solves is worth solving or not. It also helps you discover whether you are targeting the right customer segment.Deliverables:• Show case the problem you are solving and how you are solving it. Later collect emails from the customers: http://www.hrcibil.com/version2/. Use it when your idea is in early stage but you are aware of the solution and some important features.

6c. Landing Page Upgrade (Version 3)Experiment: Fake Door, Online Ads, Comprehension Testing, Email with CTA or Landing Page, Dry Wallet, Smoke Test (High Bar)What: Create a live website (landing page) to showcase your idea. Start with a simple version 1 and then add more functionality with versions 2 and 3 when and as you need them. Includes Google Analystics and GDPR Compliance.Why: Landing Pages allow you to test if the problem your solution solves is worth solving or not. It also helps you discover whether you are targeting the right customer segment.Deliverables:• Show case the problem, solutions, features and pricing. Test if user intends to purchase or sign up: http://www.hrcibil.com/version3/

6d. Further Landing Pages (customised to needs)Experiment: Fake Door, Online Ads, Comprehension Testing, Email with CTA or Landing Page, Dry Wallet, Smoke Test (High Bar)What: Create a live website (landing page) to showcase your idea. Start with a simple version 1 and then add more functionality with versions 2 and 3 when and as you need them. Includes Google Analystics and GDPR Compliance.Why: Landing Pages allow you to test if the problem your solution solves is worth solving or not. It also helps you discover whether you are targeting the right customer segment.Deliverables:Version 1: Show case the problem you are solving and collect emails from the customers: http://www.hrcibil.com/version1. Use it when your idea is very early stage and you are not sure of the solution yet.Version 2: Show case the problem you are solving and how you are solving it. Later collect emails from the customers: http://www.hrcibil.com/version2/. Use it when your idea is in early stage but you are aware of the solution and some important features.Version 3: Show case the problem, solutions, features and pricing. Test if user intends to purchase or sign up: http://www.hrcibil.com/version3/

₱ 200.00

₱ 200.00

₱ 200.00

5b. Flyer / Brochure Upgrade (each additional page)Experiment: Email with CTA or Landing Page, Tear-off Flyer, Dry Wallet, Marketing CampaignWhat: Create a nicely designed one page Flyer / Brochure / Infographic around your targeted problem and solution. Why: Get feedback on your idea, also in an offline environment. Deliverables:• Design for brochure in PDF (max. 3 iterations)

6. Landing Page (Version 1)Experiment: Fake Door, Online Ads, Comprehension Testing, Email with CTA or Landing Page, Dry Wallet, Smoke Test (High Bar)What: Create a live website (landing page) to showcase your idea. Start with a simple version 1 and then add more functionality with versions 2 and 3 when and as you need them. Includes Google Analystics and GDPR Compliance.Why: Landing Pages allow you to test if the problem your solution solves is worth solving or not. It also helps you discover whether you are targeting the right customer segment. Deliverables:• Show case the problem you are solving and collect emails from the customers: http://www.hrcibil.com/version1. Use it when your idea is very early stage and you are not sure of the solution yet.

₱ 40.00

₱ 200.00


3 business days

3 business days

3 business days

3 business days

no set timeline

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10. Storyboards / IllustrationsExperiment: Comprehension TestingWhat: Create an Illustration to provide a visual explanation of text or concept. This can be showcased on social media or in the pitch presentation to better explain the solution.Why: Illustration is great for taking people on a journey, whether you’re literally walking people through a brand’s story using illustrated scenes or characters, or constructing a subtler narrative across various brand touchpoints.Deliverables: • 1 Page Illustration (max. 3 iterations)• Branding theme of your idea• Translating your solution in to visuals• JPEG format for sharing and final source file for further edits

₱ 110.00

8b. Design Prototype Upgrade GIFExperiment: Clickable App PrototypeWhat: Create a video and GIF to showcase your complete design prototype and its interaction.Why: The video can be shared on social media to showcase your solution to prospective customers. The corresponding GIF could be embedded in the final pitch to showcase your solution during the Pitch Presentation.

9. Demo / Explainer VideoExperiment: Demo / Explainer VideoWhat: Create a 2-3 min whiteboard animation video or a 2D animated video to explain the problem you are solving and the solution you want to build. Show that to your prospective customers and get their feedback. Share it on social media.Why: 2-3 minute video with clear and concise pitch is a perfect way to engage your audience. This connected with social media can reach your target customers and get the quality feedback that is needed.Deliverables: • Explainer / Solution video (max. 3 iterations) • Youtube link with the video to share on social media

₱ 60.00

₱ 600.00

8. Design Prototype (Click Dummy)Experiment: Clickable App PrototypeWhat: Create a design prototype of the solution you want to develop. This can be showcased to the customer either on your phone or via a laptop. We will work with you to understand the user journey and user flow through the app with multiple iterations.Why: Design Prototype brings your idea to life and helps you collect feedback on product features and user flow. It is a good way to showcase your solution to your perspective customer without actually developing it. It helps you understand whether the solution you are trying to build is the right solution.Deliverables:• Design Prototype - Invision (max. 10 screens and max. 3 iterations) • Source file for the design prototype

₱ 600.00

7b. Extra Ad SpendExperiment: Facebook Ads, Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, XING Ads, Instagram Ads, Twitter Ads, Youtube AdsWhat: You may have designed your Ad but you want to double down on the EUR 100 spent to generate more traffic. You decide the expenditure.Why: With more traffic you can increase your data set or test a different variable to get more insights. Deliverables:• Purchase of additional online Ads worth xxx€

₱ 40.00

7. Online Marketing Campaign (1 - 2 weeks)Experiment: Facebook Ads, Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, XING Ads, Instagram Ads, Twitter Ads, Youtube AdsWhat: Create an online advertisement on Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram etc to drive traffic to your survey, landing page, design prototype, explainer video etc.Why: Ads are a good way to drive prospective customers to your offering and test the channel conversion. Based on data collected you can make the decision for the next steps.Deliverables: • Set up of company page • Design of Ad with required messaging • Purchase of online Ads worth 100€ (except for LinkedIn which is 150€) • Analytics report on traffic and conversion and experiment result. • Source design files for future use

₱ 180 - 190


2 business days

5 business days

no set timeline

6 business days

6 - 7 business days

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11. Usability TestingExperiment: Usability TestingWhat: We will test your mobile or web app from a usability perspective (consider it a 2nd eye or sanity check) and we will point out 5 top UX and usability issues with your solution.Why: Usability issue is one of the top reasons why users STOP using your product. Understand the areas in your product which can be frustating for your users and try to fix it in your next development phase or sprint. This will definitely increase your engagement and also decrease your churn or bounce rate. Deliverables:• UX experts will test drive your solution and customer journey • A report with 5 UX issues in your product - with detailed explanation of the issues

12. Pimp my Pitch DeckExperiment: Branding (Pimp my Pitch Deck)What: Designing an inspiring pitch presentation will help you get the funding/ support you need. Don’t show up to pitches or meetings with a boring corporate slide design that sends people right to sleep. Why: Pitches typically last 7 mins, so much of your key info needs to visually pop from your slides and support your oral message. Pitches need to contain minimal text & it has to go hand-in-hand with visuals. Deliverables: • Pitch presentation for 10 slides (max. 3 iterations) • Branding theme of your idea • Translating your speaker notes into visual aids • Inserting prototype designs • Infographics • PPT format for you to do final edits

12b. Pimp my Pitch Deck Upgrade (per slide)Experiment: Branding (Pimp my Pitch Deck)What: Upgrade from your allocated 10 slides to include further designs that you may require.Why: You may wish to include more information and don't have the time to leverage the existing design of the 10 slides to make new ones.Deliverables: • 1 extra slide

13. Marketing VideoExperiment: Marketing VideoWhat: A Marketing Video is essentially an advertisement for your solution. It’s an animated or live action video used to promote or market your product or service and can include your brand name, vision, benefits and a product demo. Why: A marketing video is different from an explainer video or demo video in that is focuses more on the benefits rather than how the product or solution works and is therefore more emotional than a demo/explainer video. Deliverables: • 45 second stock video • Voiceover • Animations / infographics • Music • Branding theme of your idea • Inserting prototype designs • All licenses

14. Credit CardWhat: Using a global Mastercard credit card. We try to keep usage to an absolute minimum.Why: In rare cases that you will need something that the Prototype Fund can't supply directly, you may carry your credit over to our credit card. Your mentor must approve the purchase and a 20% management fee will be charged.The prototype Fund team will make the purchase on behalf of the team.Deliverable: • Prototype Fund team will make the purchase on behalf of the team

₱ 240.00

₱ 200.00

₱ 20.00

₱ 700.00

₱ N/A

Project Manager FeeCompulsary Project Manager Fee per team using the Digital Prototype Fund.

₱ 80.00


no set timeline

no set timeline

2 - 3 weeks

5 - 10 business days

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Welcome to thePrototype Fund Guide.This guide consists of 3 sections:

In this section we will dive into what lean experiments are, why we run them, and how to design them. This section also includes a detailed breakdown of the AfCE Lean Experiment map tool.

Lean Experiments Explained

This section introduces you to a number of tools and types fo experiments you can use to test your assumptions. For each tool the guide will give you clear instructions on how to use them.

The Tools

You need to run an experiment per week, but you are not expected to spend a lot of time on learning to use new platforms or systems (that can lead to IT and legal nightmares). That is why you have access to the prototype fund.

This section will introduce you to the fund, will explain how to submit requests and lay out some best practices of working with a developer team.

The Prototype Fund

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Lean ExperimentsExplained

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Running experiments is crucial for innovation. They allow you to test the assumptions around your idea and collect evidence that the problem you are trying to solve exists, that your solution is the right one, that you are targeting the right customer segment, etc. This ensures that you arrive at a properly validated and de-risked solution, increasing the chances of project success if you receive further funding.

It also enables you to combat the ‘HiPPO effect’. HiPPO stands for highest paid person’s opinion – it happens all to often within corporation that the most senior person in the room makes a decision based on their gut, rather than on data and evidence. By collecting this evidence and presenting it effectively a decision can be made based on data, rather than on untested assumptions.

Validating a hypothesis and de-risking the solution means gathering evidence of actual behaviour, not claimed behaviour or survey data.

Before you start, a note on claimed vs actual behaviour.

The AfCE curriculum is based on the principle of hypothesis validation by searching for direct evidence that a solution is viable. This ensures you arrive at a properly validated and de-risked solution, increasing the chances of project success if you receive further funding.

Actions people take are better than words because truth is not in what people say or claim, truth is in what they do. Most successful innovations come about through rigorous research of people’s actual behaviour.

This is a good example demonstrating the need to test as close to the usage context as possible and to not rely on ‘claimed’ data when validating a solution.

Example: A company was developing a service that would offer education and advice on cyber-security. When they conducted a survey, the majority of the people they spoke to said that they wouldn’t need this advice or service, because they already knew how to protect themselves.

But later in the interviews, it became clear that most people had very little knowledge about security and the knowledge they did have was often incorrect — clearly demonstrating that what people claim is not necessarily true.

Example: A team of developers was building a smartphone banking app. To make sure they were designing the app according to their customers' wishes they asked customers what was more important to them… convenience or security?

Interestingly, the question was answered differently depending on whether people were asked while using the app or removed from the process. When observing people using their banking apps, they said that the security requirements for logging in were too rigorous and that they would prefer a less secure, more convenient log-in process.

But when a survey was sent to other banking app users, the responses were the exact opposite. These users said they’d like more security, even at the expense of convenience.

Why we experiment.

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Running experiments is a team effort. Please find an overview of the people who will be involved in running the experiments and their respective roles.

Who will (help) experiment.

Your team will be in charge of running weekly experiments throughout your innovation program.

One person will be the designated ‘experiment lead’ and in charge of updating everyone on the progress of active experiments, filling in the loops on the experiment map and brainstorming assumptions with the team to decide what to test next.

This person will also be responsible on communicating with the prototype fund on behalf of the team.

01. Your Team

Your mentor will assist the team in running experiments.

They will help prioritise assumptions to test, interpreting experiment results and suggestion what experiment design to select. In order to do this they will review the experiment map with the team during the mentor calls.

02. Your Mentor

The Prototype Fund is a pre-budgeted and approved resource of designers, web developers, online marketers and project managers dedicated to building the assets you need to success.

They can help you set up a number of experiments outlined later in this guide.

How to best work with them is explained in the ‘Prototype Fund’ section of this guide.

03. The Prototype Fund

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1. List the assumptions you currently have around your idea and prioritise them with the help of your mentor.

2. Decide which experiments you will run and what type of behaviour you want to measure. Complete step 1 of the experiment map.

3. Together with your mentor, design the experiments. Some experiments require you to build assets. Complete step 2 and 3 of the experiment map.

4. Once the experiment is complete, assess the results to see if the experiment validated your assumptions or not. Complete step 4-6 of the experiment map.

5. Decide on your team’s next actions based on the results. Complete step 7 of the experiment map.

Each week throughout the curriculum you will be conducting at least one or more experiments to validate your assumptions around your idea. The type of experiments you will need to conduct will change throughout the curriculum. With guidance from your mentor, you will decide which experiments are the most appropriate for you.

Ensure you fill out the fields of your experiment map in such a way that even someone who is not familiar with your project would be able to clearly follow what has been done and what kind of results you have achieved. This will help you when you have to present your findings during a pitch, as well as ensures that any future team members, sponsors or mentors can be brought up to speed to the project easily.

If at any point you have questions, please get in touch with your mentor or contact [email protected]

How we experiment.How do lean experiments work?

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We design, run and analyse experiments according to the Lean Experiment Map.

It is important to follow the structure to ensure you not only run meaningful experiments, but you also collect and keep track of the data (evidence) you need to pitch your idea. Lastly, you want to ensure your insights translate into new actions – which could range from deciding on the next experiment to run up till pivoting based on the insights you gained.

Ask yourself, what is important to test now?

This could either be the most critical (make or break) assumption, a follow on assumption that arose from your last experiment or the assumption that was next on your list to test.

Ask yourself why is this important to test?

Refer to the Experiment Overview at the beginning of this guide. What questions are you trying to answer? What category do they belong to? What is an experiment design that will answer the relevant question and is feasible for you to conduct? Your mentor will help you determine the experiment design.

Don’t forget to state how long your experiment will run for!

Your minimum success metric is the ‘bar’ you set for your results. Will you consider your assumption to be validated if 60% of people/results are positive? Or do you need this to be higher?

You can create your minimum success metric in the following way:

X% of people should take action y for the assumption to be validated.

How we experiment.

Select the “most critical unknown assumption” you want to test (if this assumption is false, it will cause your idea to fail).

We believe that..

01. Most Critical Assumptions to Test Now

What type of experiment did you use? Example: focus group, problem interviews, survey, landing page, etc.

Also time box your experiment. Over what time period will you run it?

02. Experiment Design

Example: 14 of 20 people should confirm they have the problem. 70% of people should click the ‘learn more button’.

03. Minimum Success Metric

Launch Experiment: Ask your mentor to confirm the experiment and then launch it. Engage your Prototype Fund if necessary.

Find the 7 steps of the experiment map explained in detail below.

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How many people did you:- speak with- reach with your ads- interacted with in another way (based on your experiment design), etc.

04. Reach

What was the numeric result of your experiment?Example: 15 out of 20 people confirmed they had the problem, 200 people opened the email, etc.

05. Results

According to your own minimum success metrics: was your assumption:- validated- invalidated- inconclusive

06. Validation

What did you learn from the experiment? What actions will you take based on the experiment results?We learned…. therefore we will…

07. Insights & Actions

Make the scope of your experiment tangible to show you thoroughly tested your assumption. For example if 100% of your people agreed with your statement, this is less relevant and reliable if you only spoke to 1 person than if you contacted 100. How many people you will reach will depend on the experiment design (e.g. you will reach less people with a focus group than by running a Google Ad). The main thing is to clearly state how many people (n) you reached and in what way you reached them.

For example: We spoke to 12 people on the phone. 6000 people saw our Facebook Ad or 20 people clicked the ‘learn more’ link on the Landing Page.

What was the (numeric) result of your experiment?

This section ties back to your Minimum Success Metric in step 3.

There you stated that if x% of people take action y the assumption is validated.

Here you want to describe what actually happened. So x% of people took action y.

Compare what you listed in step 3 and step 5. If you exceeded your minimum success metric with the results your assumption is validated. If not your assumption would be invalidated.

In certain instances your experiment might not play out the way you intended it to. In such cases you might not be able to (in)validate your assumption, making the result of your experiment inconclusive.

Now it is time to summarise what you learned from your experiment. Write it in such a way that someone who was not involved in the experiment (or project) would be able to easily understand what you learned (this goes for all sections of the map, someone without prior knowledge should ideally be able to understand your experiment by simply looking at the map).

Based on the insights, what next actions will you be taking?

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Experiment JourneyBelow three examples of experiment journeys of corporate start-up teams are displayed. Each team will have their own sequence of experiments, based on the nature of their project and the assumptions they need to test.

These sequences are to show how a number of tools/experiment designs can be used throughout the program, feel free to use them as inspiration, but always discuss with your mentor what would work best for your unique context.

01.Team ActiveBreath are developing a mobile solution to increase patient adherence and to track their progress post lung surgery. Patients input their information via their mobile. These results are monitored by the nurses at the Health Center.

The team validated the problem, the value of the solution and its key features with the following tools:

Problem Interviewsto validate the problem

Dashboard mock upto test features and value of

the nurse interface

Solution Interviewsto receive feedback on the

mock-ups

Pimp my Deckto make the final pitch deck

shine!

Logoto bring the proposition to life

Clickable mobile pretotypeto test features and value of the patient interface

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02.

03.

CleanSweep identified a problem with cleaning product and eCommerce. eCommerce retailers don’t want to stock heavy washing liquids because they are heavy to carry and have low margin leading to higher costs associated with stocking the eComerce giant. CleanSweep management wanted to explore multiple product innovations quickly.

Legs4Life developed a novel method for involving doctors more in an education program for a new drug. The journey was market by many pivots and they got to their final pitch solution by using the following tools:

Problem Interviewsto validate problem assumptions

Problem Interviews

Solution Illustrationto explain a complex product

Solution Illustration

Facebook campaignto reach target audience

where they spend most time

Product Video

Google adword campaign

to validate solution propositions

Pimp My Deck

Product Sketchesto bring solutions to life

Logo

Landing Pageto have a place to send people to

Email address and URL

Digital Survey

The Tools

22

ProblemCategory:

The Tools:Focus group

Problem interview

23

A focus group is a qualitative research method used for exploration that brings together 6-10 people in a room to provide feedback around a product, service, concept, or marketing campaign. It’s usually lead by a moderator and can last anywhere from 20-90-minutes. The moderator has a set list of 10-12 questions. These questions are designed to uncover thoughtful responses from all the participants. The focus group is a collective on purpose. Unlike an interview, which usually occurs with one individual, the focus group method allows members of the group to interact and influence each other during the discussion and consideration of ideas. The moderator’s goal is to hear from everyone and to encourage the sharing of many different opinions and ideas.

The purpose of a focus group is not to arrive at a consensus, some level of agreement, or to decide what to do about something, but to identify the feelings, perceptions, and thinking of consumers about a particular product, service, or solution.

It’s not recommended to conduct focus groups without any previous experience. Because this is a qualitative research method, it’s very open to bias. This method should be used for exploration, not for validation.

Focus GroupAnswers these questions:How do I determine who the real customer is?How do I confirm that this is the customer?What type of customer is interested in this offer?How do we prioritise the feature set?Does the customer understand our solution?Does the solution solve a real customer problem?How can our problem be solved?What is the minimum feature set?Are we focusing on the right feature or are there other features we should be highlighting?

How-to1. Determine what you want to explore with the focus group.2. Prepare the questions you want to ask.3. Determine which groups you want to hear from.4. Recruit members for each focus group.5. Conduct focus group.6. Gather and analyse results.


24

afce.co

(You are trying to learn what the disadvantages of the workaround solutions are so that you can engineer your solution to be 10 times better).

06. Hmm interesting, what is not so great about this solution or what are the disadvantages?

For example: “I’m sorry to hear this. So how do you deal with this now – how do you find out what they spend the money on”? (If they can’t answer this well, it means they might not be your early adopter because they did not try to find any solutions to the problem yet).

05. So how do you solve that problem now / how do you deal with this?

• Conduct your interviews in pairs so one can ask the questions and the other can note the answers.

• If they can’t answer question 1, you can try re-phrasing the context in case they did not understand (but don’t change it too much) and if they still can’t answer, do not continue to question 2 – find someone else!

• Speak 20% of the time (maximum) and listen for 80% of the conversation.

• When asking the questions, do not wander off script (you will put leading words into their mouths and create unintended bias so your results will not be accurate).

• Try to ask the same questions to the same defined customer segment so you can find patterns of people who have the problem and are trying to solve it.

• Take photos to remind yourself of whom you spoke to and start building your customer profile.

Interview tips

When running problem interviews, try to adhere to the following 5 questions. You may change them to fit the context of the problem you are interviewing about.

If you cannot already guarantee that this person is from your target segment and has experienced the problem you are enquiring about, then use a pre-qualifier question before you get started. For example, when I was in Manila, Philippines wanting to interview Filipinos who had previously worked abroad, my pre-qualifier was: “Hi, I was just interested to see if you have spent any time working abroad in the past 3 years”?

My example: “Could you tell me about the last time you were working abroad and you sent money home to your family”?

(You are trying to learn if the problem is indeed perceived as a real problem by this potential customer).

For example: “OK interesting, what annoyed you about not knowing exactly what your family members were spending the money on”?

Interview cheat sheet.

01. Pre-qualifier question:

02. Could you tell me a story about the last time you experienced problem XYZ?

03. What was hard / tough / difficult about that?

04. Interesting... Can you tell me a bit more why that was hard / tough / challenging / [insert words they used ] ?

afce.co

Problem InterviewAnswers these questions:What’s the problem we are trying to solve? Is it really a problem?Is what we have a solution, and we’re just looking for a problem?I have multiple customers, which one should I focus on?How do I confirm that this is the customer/target audience?

See problem interview template.

Please see Problem interview content: When exploring new ideas you are trying to identify a problem that is worth solving for a customer that is willing to pay for a feasible solution to that problem. You do this to ensure that you have identified a real problem that a customer segment cares about. It will alsogive you clues about what type of solution you could build to solve that problem.

It might feel a bit counterintuitive, but these interviews are not meant to prove your idea, in fact what you are trying to do is to prove that you have the wrong idea! It is really all about putting ourselves in the customer’s shoes, as often when you talk to customers you learn that their problems are quite different than what you imagined.

You should try and conduct 20 interviews to get a proper reading of the landscape.

How-to1. Identify 20 potential customers to interview.2. Follow the interview cheat sheet as guidance.3. Analyse results.


25

CustomerCategory:

The Tools:Focus group (refer back to page 23)

Problem interview (refer back to page 24)

Fake door

Online Ads

26

Before you start developing your product or solution, you might want to test if people are actually interested in it. You can do this by giving the impression that it’s already built.

Pretending you have a fully developed offer allows you to make more accurate predictions about how customers will react when the actual product or offering is built. So without developing the solution, you communicate to visitors that something exists and you ask them to take action. If they act, then you know they are interested in it.

The idea of this test is to create an advertising campaign or drive people to a landing page to see how many people take action when asked to react to your offer.

If a user is willing to pay attention (e.g. click on the link or leave an email address), you can conclude that they are interested.

If you’re driving people to a landing page via an advertising campaign, the click-through rate (number of clicks divided by the number of views) gives an indication how badly customers want a particular feature. If you have a high click-thru rate or there are many people who leave behind their email address, you can conclude that you most likely have a successful product.

You can also use this technique to test if people are interested in certain product features. On your landing page, a feature description can be given and if a user clicks on it you know they are interested in that feature. Via your page’s analytics tool you can see if they have clicked. When a person clicks you can display a ‘coming soon’ message as not to give them a negative experience.

Fake DoorAnswers these questions:Is the customer interested enough in a feature to click?Which target audience is attracted? Which offerings are customers most interested in?Do different offerings appeal to different customer types?

If opportunitydoesn't knock,

build a (fake) door.

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Experiment: to validate WHO is most attracted to the solution (patients or caregivers)Tool: Fake Door

Experiment: to validate the disease type more interested in the solutionTool: Fake Door

Experiment: to validate the assumption of the average age of the customer interested in the solutionTool: Fake Door

Example 01Experiment:

Thank you screen after consumers sign up.

Example 02Experiment:

How-toCreate ads and landing pages according to the Prototype Fund templates. Decide what you want to test and build accordingly.

See Prototype Fund template.

Example of fake door. Customers are asked for their email address, but on the next screen they are informed that IF the start-up proceeds, they will be informed. It also provides a place for people to 'unsubscribe' should they want to be taken off the waiting list. for their email addresses.

28

Online AdsAnswers these questions:How can I confirm that this is my customer/target audience?Which key message is best at attracting customers to our product?Are people really interested in our solution/product? What pieces of information do we need to provide to our customers in order for them to understand and use the product?How do we prioritise the feature set?Are we focusing on the right feature or are there other features we should be highlighting/creating?

Google Ads, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook campaigns are a great way of running audience and feature validation tests or surveys. The Google network, Facebook and LinkedIn platforms allow you to drill down demographics to the particular target customer you’re trying to reach, letting you run simple tests to see which features or aspects of your product are most appealing.

With Google Ads or a Facebook campaign you should always have a strong ‘Call to Action’ so a reason for people to click. For example, the Call to Action could be “register for a free account now” or “register to become a beta-tester”. These campaigns also need to have landing pages or FB pages as these are the pages where people ‘land’ after they click and usually contain additional information. These pages can also be used to conduct additional experiments. Via the Facebook or LinkedIn analytics dashboard and Google Ads analytics plus Google Analytics you can gather and interpret the results.

Example 01: Facebook CampaignExperiment: Which creative execution (photo, headline and Call to Action) generates the most interest?

Example 02: Google Ads CampaignExperiment: which messages, incentives or layout appeal most to customers and generates the most traffic.

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Example 03: LinkedIn CampaignExperiment: Are people interested enough in the topic to click to join a webinar on the subject?


Desktop: Mobile:

How-to1. Pick your platform2. Download the corresponding template3. Analyse the results after the campaign4. (optional) add extra ad spend

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SolutionCategory:

The Tools:Fake door (refer back to page 26)

Online Ads (refer back to page 28)

Comprehension testing

Card sorting

Concierge testing

Landing page

Facebook / Linkedin page

Solution interview

Paper test

Demo / Explainer video

Marketing video

Wizard of Oz

Competitor Research

Wireframes

Clickable App Prototype

31

Comprehension tests are simple to run and usually take less than an hour. The aim is to test if your message and value proposition are easily understood. Sample sizes of your test should generally be around 20 people and don’t need to be target customers: you are testing the understanding of your value proposition, not whether they are interested in it.

Comprehension TestingAnswers these questions:What pieces of information do we need to provide to our customers in order for them to understand and use the product? Does our customer understand your solution?

How-to1. Write down your value proposition in 1-3 sentences.2. Show this to participants for a few moments (just enough to read it).3. Take it away and ask the participants to explain the value proposition in their own words.

Great things never came from

comfort zones.

1 business day

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Card sorting is a ‘low-tech’ method used to help design or evaluate the information architecture, feature sets, workflow, menu structure or site navigation paths of your solution/website or mobile app.

These Card Sorting sessions will help you understand your users’ expectations and understanding of your topics. It is often most useful once you have completed some preliminary exploration of features, target audience research and problem definition.

In a card sorting session, you organise and group topics into categories that make sense to you, this may also help label these groups.

Knowing how you (or your users) group information can help you:• Build the structure for your website or app• Decide what to put on the homepage/ home screen• Label categories and navigation• Determine what the must-have features and functions are for your MVP

Card SortingAnswers these questions: How do we prioritise the feature set?What is the minimum feature set?Are we focusing on the right feature or are there other features we should be highlighting?What features will provide the best solution?Are we missing any features?

How-to1. Identify key concepts and write them on index cards or Post-it notes.2. Arrange the cards to represent how you see the structure and relationships of the

information so in any way you think is logical, and give each group a category name, either from an existing card or by writing a name on a blank card.

3. Repeat this process across a group of test subjects.4. Analyse the results to discover patterns.

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Concierge Testing is a technique to test the solution to a customer problem by manually performing tasks as an automated service. In a concierge test the value proposition is delivered as a service. Like a hotel concierge, the focus is on a highly customised customer facing service. For this method you need to perform the tasks manually usually with a handful of customers. This high-touch method allows you to get quality feedback from the targeted audience.

A key advantage of this method is that services can be almost instantly adjusted at a very low cost so iterations based on insights from customer feedback are easily carried out. But the main benefit of this method is to generate ideas around the potential solution/product and identify any obstacles to implementing that solution.

To conduct a successful concierge test you need to be clear about your value proposition and have it well formulated. The goal is to test the solution and figure out if it matches your customer’s expectations.

When using the service your customers should go through the same steps as they would go through later with your final product solution.

Start with just a small batch of customers. While delivering your service keep collecting feedback from your customers and adjust your service accordingly. After some time you learn what your customers exact expectations are and what is really valuable to them. You can then gradually automate the parts of your service that work and ensure they are a part of your MVP.

Concierge tests can be a time consuming test to perform as it requires manually solving the customer problem. For a complex B2B IT solution, a concierge solution can be a complete consulting engagement lasting many months — for these, it is often possible to charge for the solution up front which eliminates any resource constraints.

For a consumer, it might be as simple as personally going shopping with a customer.

Concierge TestingAnswers these questions: Does the solution solve a real customer problem?How can the problem be solved?What is the minimum feature set required to implement a solution?What are the biggest issues you come up against when trying to solve the customers problem?

How-to1. Write down the value proposition that needs to be tested.2. Design the value proposition as a personalised, customer touching service.3. Talk to potential customers (early adopters) and offer them your service, possibly in

exchange for a payment.4. Execute the service by performing tasks manually even though it is not efficient or cost

effective.5. Gather learnings and act on learnings.

5 business days

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Landing PageAnswers these questions:Are people really interested in our solution/product? What pieces of information do we need to provide to our customers in order for them to understand and use the product?Are we focusing on the right feature or are there other features we should be highlighting?What feature will provide the best solution?

A landing page is a standalone web page that evaluates whether a particular type of customer wants a proposed product based on actual behaviour (as opposed to a declared preference). A landing page is where a visitor “lands” when they have clicked on a Google Ads, LinkedIn or other marketing and advertising campaign.

These landing pages describe the features or product idea. The potential customer confirms their interest by:

1. Leaving an email address or 2. Selecting a product bundle and going through a (simulated) checkout process. (See Dry Wallet, page x).Via your landing page analytics tools (most often Google Analytics), you can gather and interpret the results.

Example 01 To test which Call to Action (CTA) button placement works best, and to gauge interest amongst target audience by asking them to sign up for a beta membership.

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Example 02

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Example 03 More extensive landing page used to conduct multiple experiments.


• Experiment to test which features of a portal would appeal most to those interested. Based on what people click on, team could tell what was most useful.

• Experiment to validate the type of customer who is interested in a potential app and certificates.

• Experiment to track interest in a webinar via email and data capture.

• Experiment to test the type of information visitors would be interested, but done in a very inexpensive way (via Google Docs).

How-to1. Fill out the prototype fund template and upload it.2. Analyse the results.

Please note that if you want your landing page to be in a different language than English to upload the script in that language as well as the English translation.

37

Facebook Page / LinkedIn Company PageAnswers these questions:Are people really interested in our solution/product? What pieces of information do we need to provide to our customers in order for them to understand and use the product?Are we focusing on the right feature or are there other features we should be highlighting?What feature will provide the best solution?Is the product idea attractive to a particular segment or niche?

A Facebook or LinkedIn page is a page that captures interest from customers after they have clicked on an ad from within that platform.

These pages help evaluate whether a particular type of customer is interested in a product or solution based on actual behaviour (clicking through and then taking any additional further action). It can also be a place to provide further information about your product and services if you don’t want to create a stand alone landing page.

Ideally the page should further explain the features or product idea. Customers express interest by reacting to a call to action on these pages, like ‘liking’ or ‘following’ or signing up for a webinar or whitepaper.

Example 01 Facebook Page

2 business days

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Example 02 LinkedIn Company Page

The extra mile isnever crowded.

How-toThis is not really an ‘experiment’, but rather part of another experiment you might run. If you are running an experiment which requires you to have a Facebook/LinkedIn page you will be asked to create one. You can ask the prototype fund team to do this for you using the Facebook Page template below. (For setting up a LinkedIn page, this is part of the LinkedIn Ads template – see 04. Ads)

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Solution InterviewAnswers these questions:Does our customer understand your solution?Does the solution solve a real customer problem?How can our problem best be solved?What are the greatest problems in effecting a solution for the customer?

In the Solution Interview the main goal is to confirm the value proposition as the right solution for the customer need. This differs from a product demo because a product demo gives the solution a very specific shape. The two things are fundamentally different. Putting a determined solution in front of the user before having validated the main value proposition is most probably premature and could end in a falsified experiment. Always try to conduct a Solution Interview before you create a product demo.

How-toPreparing the interview: (Note that this type of interview needs to be thoroughly prepared and will take more time to prepare than the problem interview.)

• Decide precisely what you want to learn.• Define your customer segment.• Formulate your assumptions.• Explore with big questions. Use techniques from the problem interview. Formulate

questions in a way that all answers are equal. • Ask open questions.• Have questions prepared for the potential ‘triggers’ (see above).• Ask for behaviours, not opinions.

When determining the questions you will ask during your interview prepare for potential triggers. Each of the key signals listed below (along with strong associated emotions) should immediately prompt a set of smart and focused follow-on questions to further clarify the customer situation and hopefully lead to a realistic assessment if and how your product fits into the specific context.

Money cost: When a customer is mentioning a specific amount of money that is lost every time a specific inefficient process take place (that could be fixed by your product).

Workaround: When a customer mentions specific tricks or procedures they take to obtain a specific result.

Person: When the customer notices that a person or role in their company is particularly impacted by a faulty process.

Numbers: When the customer describes a specific metric that is critical achieving in their business goals and this factor is also affecting them personally.

Barrier: When the customer mentions specific challenges that prevent them from performing in their job at their fullest potential.


40

Paper TestAnswers these questions:How do we priorities the feature set?What is the minimum feature set?Are we focusing on the right feature or are there other features we should be highlighting /creating?Is this an easy experience?Is it logical?Is it clear what the benefit of the solution is to our customer?Is it clear to our customer what we are trying to achieve?

Quickly test your solution / idea by simulating user-product interactions using paper drawings and cut-outs. Paper testing can also be used to help generate and evaluate design alternatives during ideation or it can be used as early usability testing. One person is the product user while the other simulates the behaviour of the product in response to the user’s actions using paper mock-ups of screen images or other user interface elements.

You are looking for places where the customer gets stuck, was not able to find what she was looking for, or accidentally went down a wrong path. Anything that is misleading, confusing, or hard-to-find is noteworthy.

If anything like this happens, you’ll want to dig into what information the customer was missing that led to the confusion and how might that information best be provided (or how it might need to be eliminated). You also want to look for situations which may have come up where the customers response was not defined, or where an action was possible where you did not want one to be possible.

How-to1. For each screen / interface that is part of the interaction you are testing, create a simple

mock-up on paper illustrating what will appear on the screen for the various scenarios you are exploring.

2. One person (or a pair) plays the role of the customer / end user (Customer).3. Another person (or several people) plays the role of the software (Computer).4. The Customer interacts with the paper prototype as if it is a “real” application, physically

interacting with the paper interface just as they would the real thing. They are encouraged to explain their thinking out loud as much as possible.

5. For each action the Customer takes, the Computer then moves / updates the paper prototype to reflect the new state in response to the Customer’s action. As a general rule, the Computer should not talk.

6. For more formal forms, observers would typically watch for additional insights and capture notes. You might want to have a facilitator, as they can encourage the Customer to ask questions and think aloud .

7. If you want, alternate interaction flows and layouts, and/or modifications to proposed interactions can be quickly mocked up and tested if you want to make immediate changes.

3 business days

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Creating and showing a demo video helps explain your solution to a potential user or customer for the purpose of gathering feedback on a problem. You create the illusion that your product is real and developed by recording and editing a ‘real-life’ scenario involving the use of your product.

This method is versatile because it can also help you gather insights about a solution you have built and whether or not a target audience is willing to pay to use your solution. When you show your demo video to potential customers, you are looking to validate your customer pain points, the impact of those pains, and pitch your solution to those pains.

You can present personally or share a link to the recording or explainer video and follow up with a digital survey with open and closed questions.


Demo / Explainer VideoAnswers these questions:Does our customer understand our solution?Does the solution solve a real customer problem?How can our problem best be solved?Are we focusing on the right feature or are there other features we should be highlighting / creating?Are we missing any features?

6 - 7 business days

How-toFill out the prototype fund template and submit it to get your video created.

42

Marketing VideoAnswers these questions:What type of customer is interested in this offer?Which key message is best at attracting customers to our product?Are people really interested in our solution/product? What pieces of information do we need to provide to our customers in order for them to understand and use the product?Are customers interested enough to take action?Does your customer understand your solution?

A Marketing Video is essentially an advertisement for your solution. It’s an animated or live action video used to promote or market your product or service and can include your brand name, vision, benefits and a product demo. A marketing video is different from an explainer video or demo video in that is focuses more on the benefits rather than how the product or solution works and is therefore more emotional than a demo/explainer video.

Here is an example of a marketing video from one team within an insurance company. The video went viral internally and created a lot of support for the team: https://youtu.be/LFaPcA8uH3I


2 - 3 weeks

How-toFill out the prototype fund template and submit it to get your video created.

43

Wizard of OzAnswers these questions:Which feature will provide the best solution?How do we prioritise the feature set?What is the minimum feature set?Are we focusing on the right feature or are there other features we should be highlighting?

Wizard of Oz testing involves one or more individuals simulating fully functioning product features without the use of technology. All inputs, outputs, and algorithms are performed manually by humans, but without the knowledge of the customer.

This allows you to test a complete solution and gain accurate feedback from the customer without the cost of building a complex, fully automated solution. It’s usually not a ‘quick and dirty’ prototyping method as it requires higher commitment of resources. The Wizard of Oz test can provide valuable information especially quantitative data. Also you can gather information about the nature of interaction with your product.

This tool is often confused with Concierge Testing.

IBM wanted to test a new idea of translating speech into written text. So they placed a monitor in a room and asked people to speak into a microphone. As people spoke, they could see the words appearing on the screen in front of them. What they didn‘t know was that they had hooked up speakers to the next room where a typist was typing what she was hearing on her keyboard, and this would appear on the screen in the other room. So the device didn‘t yet work.

The learning was two fold:

1) users complained about a lack of privacy and confidentiality as now everyone in the open office could hear what they were saying.

2)They also commented about getting a sore throat from speaking too much. So although everyone said initially they loved the idea and would buy the device, after this experiment it was clear people would not use the product.

How-to1. Build a prototype of your product without the fancy algorithms / technology.2. Allocate at least one person (the “Wizard” behind the curtains) who simulates the

interactive behaviour of the product.3. Show your product to your users and let them use it.4. Collect data to see if your product delivers value to your users.

Example: IBM Speech to Text

3 - 5 business days

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Competitor Usability Testing is the practice of having people in your target audience use competitors’ products or services to learn what kind of value propositions actually solve their problems or pains. This is also a great method for generating ideas around your solution and identifying new pain points in your target audience.

Competitor ResearchAnswers these questions:What do our customers like most about our competitors product or services?Are we focusing on the right feature(s) or are there other features we should be highlighting/creating?Are we missing any features?What feature(s) will provide the best solution?

How-to1. Identify competitors to research.2. Ask subjects to use their product / service.3. Observe their behaviour and ask them what they enjoyed, didn’t enjoy, what could be

done better or what they missed in the experience.

Pay itforward.

2 - 3 business days

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Wireframes are a low-fidelity visual guide that represent the functional framework of an app or website. They can be as simple as drawn sketches or you can use software to help create wireframes.Wireframes force everyone to think clearly and objectively about an app or website’s functionality, conversion paths, navigation placement, feature placement and ease of use.

Wireframes ensure that each page has a purpose, achieves the goals set out in the brief and define a logical navigation for your solution.

WireframesAnswers these questions:What’s the userflow through the experience?How do people navigate through the solution?How does the solution work?

How-to1. Map out your user flow.2. Sketch your screens.3. Get the help of the prototype fund by submitting the ‘Landing page’ or ‘Clickable App’

template.

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A clickable prototype or design prototype is an interactive prototype, usually of an app, with limited functionality that allows users to navigate from page to page or from section to section to help determine preliminary usability and navigational paths. You can showcase your solution to customers on the phone or via a laptop. It can bring your solution to life with out having to actually develop the solution and therefore helps you to understand if the solution you are trying to build is the right solution.

Clickable App PrototypeAnswers these questions:Is it clear what the benefit of the solution is to our customer?Is this an easy experience?Are we focusing on the right feature or are there other features we should be highlighting/creating?How can we improve usability?Where do people get stuck?Can this be simplified?Is it logical?What's out customer's overall propensity to use the product?


5 business days

How-toFill out the prototype fund template and submit it to get your clickable app prototype created.

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Messaging & pricingCategory:

The Tools:Focus groups (refer back to page 23)

Fake door (refer back to page 26)

Online Ads (refer back to page 28)

Comprehension testing (refer back to page 31)

Landing page (refer back to page 34)

Facebook / Linkedin page (refer back to page 37)

Solution interview (refer back to page 39)

Demo / Explainer video (refer back to page 41)

Marketing video (refer back to page 42)

Email with call to action

Tear-off flyer

Dry wallet

Competitor Research (refer back to page 44)

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Example:My Bayer World

How-to1. Determine what you want to measure and then draft the email with the ‘call to action’.2. Send email and tally the responses.

Creating and sending an email is a great way to gauge interest in your product or service if you already have an identified audience. Your email should contain a brief description of your product or service and a ‘call to action’ that entices readers to click or take action such as registering their interest in a future product or service or to become beta testers.

Results can validate interest and demonstrate understanding of the key benefits of a solution, product or service.

Email with Call to Action or Landing PageAnswers these questions:Which key message is best at attracting customers to our product?Are people really interested in our solution/product? What pieces of information do we need to provide to our customers in order for them to understand and use the product?

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Tear-off FlyerAnswers these questions:Which key message should we use to attract customers to our product?Are people really interested in our solution/product? Are customers interested enough to take action?

A flyer / brochure lets you explain your value proposition and messaging and the tear-off tabs can be used to gauge interest in the offering or product. Tear-off tabs on a flyer let people walk away with information while saving them the trouble of taking notes.

Tear-off flyers can be hung in office elevators or in the restrooms, at the cafeteria or other spaces where people congregate.

How-to1. Decide what you want to test.2. Create the flyer and tear off sheets.3. Hang up sheet.4. Count how many people tear off the tabs.

Example:


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to be used in combination with a landing page.

Qualitative

This can be a part of the ‘solution interview’. During the interview you can ask people if or how much they would pay for your product or services. By attaching a monetary value to your offering, you can gauge if their interest is genuine or if they are only being polite.

By asking them about payment, you’ll start hearing insights that you wouldn’t have heard otherwise, because people will only part with their money if they truly see the value in a product or service. Quantitative

In order to test whether customers will actually purchase your products or sign up for a service, and for how much, you can simulate a “purchase now” experience. This may take the form of a simple e-commerce check-out, a prompt for them to sign up for a particular level of service or a letter of intent request.

If you are trying to determine which features a customer will pay for, you can split them up into different levels of service, each with a distinct price and gauge response.

You don’t actually charge the visitor any money, so to collect the data but still provide a good experience simply respond with an “out of stock” message (or selecting from other suitable phrases), by letting the customer know that the offering has temporarily been halted due to product upgrades and you will be in touch as soon as the product or service is offered.

Via your landing page’s analytics tools (most often Google Analytics), you can gather and interpret the results.

Dry-WalletAnswers this question:How much are people willing to pay for a service / product?

Experiment:To validate which feature set is the most appealing. Visitors are presented with three levels of service to choose from.

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How-to1. Determine what you want to ‘charge’ for your product or service. It can be different

options or a different offerings at different price points.2. Create and launch digital mock-ups and drive traffic to the page. 3. Track the results of the experiment and iterate accordingly.

I don't stop when I'm tired, I stop

when I'm done.


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Usability (UX)Category:

The Tools:Paper test (refer back to page 40)


Clickable App Prototype (refer back to page 46)

Smoke test high bar

Usability testing (high level)

Wireframes (refer back to page 45)

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Smoke Test (High Bar)Answers this question:What’s our customer’s overall propensity to use the product?

A High Bar Test helps to gauge the customer’s willingness to invest time and effort in order to get the product / solution. This test is focused on having the customer go through a set of activities containing abnormal amounts of usability friction (e.g. a very long, complicated signup form) to gauge the customer’s desire for a particular solution.

Example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE&index=1&list=PLL4Lse9mfCgLvcgE9F3ZP6MmVW7N1blq7

This video was created to demonstrate how dropbox works, even though it had not yet been developed. With some clever editing, it faked the experience of syncing files between different folders on a computer. At the end of the video, people could register for access to dropbox using a sign up form. From this sign up form, they even added in another “high bar” experiment which was to make the form so complicated to complete, that it would take 3 hours to complete. Even so, thousands of people completed the form showing they were really willing to use the product. This was all the evidence needed to raise the millions of funding required to build the solution.

How-to1. Determine what information you want to gather.2. Use any experiment type but make it harder for the customer to demonstrate the

behavior you have chosen to measure. Creativity is required!

2 - 7 business days

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Usability TestingAnswers these questions:How can we improve usability?Is this an easy experience?Where do people get stuck?Can this be simplified?Is it logical?

Usability testing is a tool used to evaluate a built product or service by testing it with your target audience. During a test, participants will try to complete typical tasks while the team watches, listens and takes notes. The goal is to identify any usability problems, collect qualitative and quantitative data and determine the participant’s satisfaction with the product.

How-to1. Decide what you want to test.2. Select your user group.3. Invite them and ask them to carry out certain tasks.4. Observe their behaviour, ask questions, take notes and make necessary amendments.

2 business days

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Visualising / Selling The Idea

Category:

The Tools:Logo

Pimp my pitch deck

Product design sketch

360 degree model

Photorealistic rendering

Tear-off flyer (refer back to page 49)


Marketing video (refer back to page 42)

Clickable App Prototype (refer back to page 46)

Wireframes (refer back to page 45)

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You have a team name and the beginnings of your elevator pitch and are keen to get started with experiments. One of the first things you can do is to give your start-up a logo/brand. This will then be applied to surveys, website, apps, prototypes your pitch deck, etc. It’s the first step in making your idea concrete.

A. LogoAnswers these questions:I’m excited, how do I get started?How do I brand the team?

How-toSee Prototype Fund Template.

BrandingAnswers this question:How do I visualise my idea?

3 business days

5 business days

Don’t show up to pitches or meetings with a boring corporate slide design that sends people right to sleep. Your goal is to inspire and to get funded!

Pitches last only 7 mins, so much of your key info needs to visually pop from your slides and support your oral message. Pitches contain only minimal text which has to go hand in hand with your visuals.

B. Pimp my Pitch DeckAnswers these questions:How do I make sure my pitch gets funded?How do I make sure people don’t fall asleep during my pitch?How do I make my pitch deck prettier?

How-to1. Follow the pitch deck outline to make sure you have the right content for each slide. 2. After numerous iterations, and practice time presenting (remember you only have 7

minutes, ensure you have max 15 slides with the final content and speaker notes (no spelling mistakes or typos!)

See Prototype Fund Template.

NoteYou must have all of your speaker notes written so the designers know what you are trying to say. The designers will NOT help you with the content, if you need help, make sure you ask your mentor for guidance.

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Product Design SketchAnswers these questions:How do I visualise my product idea?How could my product be developed?How can I improve the design of my idea?How do I make my product more desirable?How do I achieve high recognition with my (range of) products?

A product design sketch is a first impression of what your future product will look like. Having a visual to show to people will help you when you are conducting experiments like customer interviews, comprehension testing or during your pitch.

A product sketch will also help you to identify any areas in which you can improve your design – as our designers have extensive product design experience and will be able to offer suggestions on how to make your product more desirables to customers.

2 business days

Option 1a: Just follow the proposed designThe designer will created an analogue or digital design drawing based on the information your team provides them with. The designer will follow your instructions to create a first impression of the design direction.

The images on this page were created by our physical prototype fund partner unyt

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How-toFill out the prototype fund template and submit it to get your product design sketch created

Please note that regardless of which option you would like to select (1a, 1b or 1c) you will always start with 1a first. Depending on the selected option the designer will simply follow your vision, offer alternatives or even create design principles for you.

Option 1b: Follow but challenge the designThe designer will provide you with an alternative solution based on his experience and outsiders perspective. They will suggest how to make your product more desirable.

Option 1c: Create design principlesDesign principles primarily serve the transparent communication of the structural design idea behind the concept. On the other hand, they serve a simple transferability to other products of a family to create homogeneity. They are also useful to clearly distinguish different design approaches from each other without already designing the details.


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360 Degree CAD ModelAnswers these questions:What will my product look like in 3D?How complex will my product be?What number of parts will my product have?Can we foresee any future construction and/or production issues?How can we (aesthetically) optimise the idea/product?

A 360 Degree CAD model is a live view of your product (or key feature) in 3D. This is delivered in a 3D PDF in which users can turn the visualisation of your product, zoom in and out and in some versions even see how it is assembled.

Having a 360 Degree Model will provide you with an interactive and detailed way to show off the key features of your product including proportions and dimensions. Plug this into explainer or marketing videos to help you raise development funds.

3 business days

Option 2b: A simple (1 mono-part) surface and volume model as rotatable 3D file.This is a more detailed and elaborated design, based on the product sketch of your idea and allows you to evaluate and verify the product idea further.

Option 2c: A semi-detailed (1 multi-part) surface and volume model as rotatable 3D file.A semi-detailed model can already slightly show the complexity and possible necessary number of parts with regards to later construction and production issues.


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Option 2d: A detailed (1 assembly containing several single parts) surface volume as rotatable 3D file.A detailed model can also already slightly show the complexity and possible number of parts needed, with regards to the later construction and production issues. With an exploded view you are able to more effectively show a feasible way of assembling the future product.

How-to1. Make sure you have your product design sketch (1a, 1b or 1c)2. Fill out the 2a template to schedule your call with the product designer3. Based on their recommendations you will decide which of the examples shown above is

most suitable for your product idea

Please note that you will need a program like Acrobat Reader DC to be able to open a 3D Pdf file.


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Photorealistic RenderingAnswers these questions:What will the look and feel of my finished product be?How will my product look from different perspectives?

A photorealistic rendering, including defined materials, colours and product graphic, which brings your idea to live. You can use this rendering in your explainer or marketing video, on your landing page or during your final pitch to show what your product could look like.

2 business days

Option 3a and 3b: Photorealistic rendering of your product.

Option 3C: 360 degree movie of your product.Go to the online platform to see a live example.

How-to1. Make sure you have at least a semi-detailed CAD model2. Start with option 3a (photorealistic rendering)3. Based on your requirement and the designer’s advice you can choose to proceed to

option 3b or 3c


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The Prototype Fund

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Submitting requests to the Prototype Fund

Here is how you submit requests to the Prototype Fund:

Navigate to www.afce.co and log in with your credentials.

Click on ‘find all templates here’ and download the template you are looking for.

Once you see the following screen you know your template has been received. The prototype fund team will review your template and will reach out to you by email if they have any further questions.

Fill out the template. Submit your template in the portal.

The tool will be on your dashboard. Double click to enter it.

Select all templates from the menu. Double click to enter it.

01.

04.

07.

05. 06.

02. 03.

Please reply to the team promptly if they have any further questions, they will not be able to start working on your request until you do!

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Ensuring on-time delivery of assets and requests from the Prototype Fund.

Prototype Do’s and Don’ts

Do’s:

Don’ts:

01.

01.

02.

02.

03.

03.

Read the emails from the Prototype fund and quickly answer any questions that might be asked in the email. Failure to answer any questions usually results in delayed timelines.

Note:The prototype fund will not chase you or the team for answers to their questions so the responsibility is yours to follow up — not theirs.While the prototype fund team is responsible for setting up the experiment / delivering the materials, it is the team’s responsibility to answer any questions they have while working on your request.

Don’t wait more than 2 days to review the deliveries. You have a limited amount of time in this program so speed is important. If you need any iterations to the deliverables (item permitting) make sure you communicate this to the team as soon as possible.If you do not respond to the team’s questions within 5 working days week your requests will be marked as completed.

Ensure you submit a completely filled out template. If you leave out sections this might mean the team has to reach out to you for further information, delaying the delivery. Giving them the context will help them to tailor the deliveries to your specific needs.

Because of time zone issues, don’t always expect immediate replies to your queries. Most of the team is based in the IST time zone, meaning that your day might already their night time. The team will reply to you as soon as they return to the office the next day.Take note of the delivery times per experiment are listed on the template. These delivery times are for the first delivery and additional time might be needed to execute on (larger) iterations.

Accept the invitation from the prototype fund project manager for a call to further clarify. Sometimes the PM will want to speak to you or the team to get more insight into your project. These calls will greatly improve the quality of the work the team can deliver to you.If time zones are a constraint please list what time zone you are based in and give a range of options that would work for you (the team is generally quite flexible).

Expect that the prototype fund will chase you for answers to their questions. They support multiple teams and will not have the time to ensure they get answers in time to meet their committed turnaround times.

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Appendix.

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What is GDPR?GDPR is a regulation that requires businesses to protect the personal data and privacy of EU citizens for transactions that occur within 28 EU member states. And non-compliance could cost companies dearly.

What types of privacy data does the GDPR protect?• Basic identity information such as name, address and ID numbers• Web data such as location, IP address, cookie data and RFID tags• Health and genetic data• Biometric data• Racial or ethnic data• Political opinions• Sexual orientation

What does this mean for the solutions I’m building and the experiments I’m running?This means that you will need to follow a ‘privacy by design’ principle. This calls for the inclusion of data protection from the onset of the designing of systems.

Privacy by design as a concept has existed for years now, but it is only just becoming part of a legal requirement with the GDPR. At its core, privacy by design calls for the inclusion of data protection from the onset of the designing of systems, rather than an addition. More specifically - ‘The controller shall.. implement appropriate technical and organisational measures.. in an effective way.. in order to meet the requirements of this Regulation and protect the rights of data subjects’. Article 23 calls for controllers to hold and process only the data absolutely necessary for the completion of its duties (data minimisation), as well as limiting the access to personal data to those needing to act out the processing.

Do I need to state anything or ask for consent if I’m collecting a person’s email address (and any further information) for future contact?Yes, but if you are using the Prototype Fund then your project manager will take care of this for you. If your landing pages use cookies, a pop-up will appear that asks for consent. If you collect email addresses then the user must tick a box that states they understand what the email will be used for and that they understand and comply with the Terms and Conditions.

What happens if I don’t collect email addresses but still want to track how people navigate my website/landing pages?You don’t need to ask for consent if you are just implementing Google Analytics and are not planning on recontacting any visitors to your landing pages.

Who can I check with to ensure that we are GDPR compliant?The Prototype Fund will ensure you are GDPR compliant.

GDPR Compliance FAQ’sGeneral Data Protection Regulation

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How do I ask for consent?The conditions for consent have been strengthened, as companies will no longer be able to utilise long illegible terms and conditions full of legalese, as the request for consent must be given in an intelligible and easily accessible form, with the purpose for data processing attached to that consent - meaning it must be unambiguous. Consent must be clear and distinguishable from other matters and provided in an intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language. It must be as easy to withdraw consent as it is to give it.

Explicit consent is required only for processing sensitive personal data - in this context, nothing short of “opt in” will suffice. However, for non-sensitive data, “unambiguous” consent will suffice.

Parental consent will be required to process the personal data of children under the age of 16 for online services; member states may legislate for a lower age of consent but this will not be below the age of 13.

Is there a boilerplate sample that I can use?Yes, the Prototype Fund has this boilerplate consent as well as a boilerplate Terms & Conditions.

What happens if there is a data breach?Under the GDPR, breach notification will become mandatory in all member states where a data breach is likely to “result in a risk for the rights and freedoms of individuals”. This must be done within 72 hours of first having become aware of the breach. Data processors will also be required to notify their customers, the controllers, “without undue delay” after first becoming aware of a data breach.

Are people allowed to ask what data I have stored about them?Part of the expanded rights of data subjects outlined by the GDPR is the right for data subjects to obtain from the data controller confirmation as to whether or not personal data concerning them is being processed, where and for what purpose. Further, the controller shall provide a copy of the personal data, free of charge, in an electronic format. This change is a dramatic shift to data transparency and empowerment of data subjects.

Do people have the Right to be Forgotten?Also known as Data Erasure, the right to be forgotten entitles the data subject to have the data controller erase his/her personal data, cease further dissemination of the data, and potentially have third parties halt processing of the data. The conditions for erasure, as outlined in article 17, include the data no longer being relevant to original purposes for processing, or a data subjects withdrawing consent. It should also be noted that this right requires controllers to compare the subjects’ rights to “the public interest in the availability of the data” when considering such requests.

If requested, do I need to share the data that I collected about someone? GDPR introduces data portability - the right for a data subject to receive the personal data concerning them, which they have previously provided in a ‘commonly use and machine readable format’ and have the right to transmit that data to another controller.

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Glossary

Analogue: Not involving or relating to the use of computer technology, as a contrast to a digital counterpart. For example a hand drawn, rather than computer generated, image.

Digital: Involving or relating to the use of computer technology, as a contrast to an analogue counterpart. For example a computer generated image, a digital clock, etc.

Pretotype: Comes before prototype. It’s a way to invoke a behavioural reaction from your target customerallowing you to measure their reaction to something e.g. watching a fake video of how your solution works. The phrase “fake it until you make it” is often used to express pretotyping.

Prototype: The stage after pretotype. It’s a way to measure your target customers behaviour whilst they are interacting with an early version of your solution, which has functional parts to it.

A/B Testing: A/B Testing is a way of working that tests multiple variants (variant A and variant B) of a certain element against each other in order to discover which variant performs the best in maximising a desired outcome (e.g. click-thru to website or click to subscribe on a landing page).

Design Principles: Fundamental pieces of advice for you to make easy-to-use, pleasurable designs. You apply them when you select, create and organise elements and features in your work. Design principles represent the accumulated wisdom of researchers and practitioners in design and related fields. When you apply them, you can predict how users will likely react to your design.

Mono Part: Object consisting of only one part.

Multi Part: Object consisting of multiple parts.

3D CAD File: A digital file of an object that was created using 3D CAD software or through 3D scanning. It is generally displayed as a two-dimensional image using 3D rendering or visualisation.

Beta group testing: In software development, a beta test is the second phase of software testing in which a sample of the intended audience is exposed to the product. The main goal is to get real-world exposure for your prototype and to know how your customers will react to your product, service or solution.

MVP: Stands for minimum viable product. If you are not embarrassed by your first release, then it means you are not launching early enough.

Here are some useful terms and phrases you might come across while experimenting.

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There’s a way to do it better. Find it.

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The Prototype Fund Guide - AfCE...Demo / Explainer Video Marketing Video Wizard of Oz Competitor Research Wireframes Clickable App Prototype Category: Messaging & pricing Email with