The Role of Prototyping in Innovative Product Development

Ever noticed how we talk about prototyping but rarely actually do it? 🤔 I get it – I've been there. It feels safer to plan exhaustively than to put something imperfect into the world. But here's what I've learned: Perfect plans fail perfectly. Imperfect prototypes teach perfectly. We've become professional excuse-manufacturers: "The tool isn't ready" "We need more confidence before showing anything to users" "Let me schedule another alignment meeting" Most ideas live in static documents, but what if we built living artifacts instead? The shift from "planning products" to "evolving prototypes" has compressed my time-to-insight by 80%. This is what I teach and how I do it: -» Select Problem → Choose something worth solving with AI -» Explore Problem Space → Research just enough to move forward -» Initial Requirements → Define the bare minimum to build v0 -» Prototype → Build something tangible (even if imperfect) -» Iterate → The magic happens in this loop! -» Connect APIs → Make it talk to real data. 🔑 Key: (Add a form / PostHog analytics) -» Share & Feedback → Create that virtuous cycle Last week at PMTeach with Nabeel, and at USF with Product Club | University of San Francisco, we demonstrated this approach—building clones of familiar apps and net-new «connected!» prototypes in minutes, not weeks. The students' eyes widened watching ideas transform from concepts to interactive experiences they could actually touch, share, and learn from. What changes when you work this way? Everything. Engineers respect PMs who can visualize solutions. Stakeholders give better feedback on working prototypes than documents. And you? You rediscover the joy of creating that likely drew you to product work initially. Really. Try. Tools like v0, Replit, and Loveable have democratized this creation process. We're bringing prototype-building directly into Zentrik soon too, because I believe every product decision should be testable, not just discussable. ---- For the curious, I'm happy to share my two default prompts that power this workflow. Would you be interested in trying a weekly prototype cycle? And if you're already a v0/Replit master, I'd love to chat as we refine our approach.

From idea to prototype in hours, not weeks. That's been my recent experience experimenting with Lovable, and it's completely changed how I approach ideation and product thinking. Turning abstract ideas into clickable, interactive prototypes in no time means less talking about the concept, and more showing. In one recent build, the moment I shared the prototype, the conversation shifted from “What do you mean?” to “Is this how you see it?” That one shift sparked faster clarity, better feedback, and deeper alignment. No more endless meetings trying to describe what’s in everyone’s head. Here’s what I’ve learned along the way: 𝟭. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗼𝗯𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁. Even with powerful tools doing the heavy lifting, I start by organizing my thoughts on paper—with a clear outline, defined scope, and key user flows. The tool amplifies good product thinking, but it can't replace it. 𝟮. 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗮𝘅𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆. This becomes incredibly clear when you're building a visual prototype. Getting your information architecture right from the start saves significant rework later. 𝟯. 𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗳𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸. Don't aim for perfection on the first build. Get something clickable in front of people quickly. The real insights come from watching others interact with your prototype, not from endless polishing. You can always go deeper and refine the prototype based on those initial insights. 𝟰. 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁. For initial builds, leverage local browser cache before connecting to databases or other external tools. It speeds things up considerably and keeps you agile. 𝟱. 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. A crucial reminder: never store your LLM API keys in plain text, especially if your project is public or remixable. Low-code tools like Lovable don’t just speed up the work—they unlock momentum, clarity, and collaboration. These change the way we think, not just what we build. Been experimenting with Lovable, Replit, v0 dev, or similar tools? I’d love to hear your best practices. ------------------------- P.S Curious about prototyping, product thinking, or AI workflows? I host Sunday brainstorming sessions — DM me if you'd like to join the next one!

AI prototyping is the newest tool PMs have to master. So I sat down with the CPO of v0 (one of the top 5 tools), Tom Occhino. We discuss: 1. How PMs should use AI prototyping 2. How Vercel (v0) builds product 3. How to use v0 like a pro 🎬 Watch now: YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eFYq2DzS Available everywhere: Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eyt7agKj Apple: https://lnkd.in/eAEVwr3u Newsletter (w/ transcript): https://lnkd.in/eECif23u Thank you to our amazing sponsors: 🏆 WorkOS: Your App, Enterprise Ready - https://lnkd.in/eBTFz6cs 🏆 Jira Product Discovery: Plan with purpose, ship with confidence - https://lnkd.in/ecr-6F7w 🏆 The AI Evals Course for PMs & Engineers: https://lnkd.in/ek9ixfDR - You get $800 with this link. 🏆 Product Faculty: Get $500 off the AI PM certification with code AAKASH25 - https://lnkd.in/dyGiBG-5 Here were my 8 favorite takeaways: 1. Small teams can ship big things. The v0 team is under 14 people, yet they’ve built a tool that’s enabling thousands to build faster. Size is no longer a limiting factor — clarity and leverage are. 2. Prototyping is now a cross-functional superpower. PMs can validate hypotheses instantly. Designers can test flows without waiting on devs. Sales can create tools for prospects on the fly. Every role levels up when they can build. 3. The prototype is the new PRD. You don’t need a 5-page document to explain an idea anymore. A working prototype - even if imperfect - communicates 10x more. And with tools like v0, you can build one in minutes. 4. v0 isn’t just for engineers. Designers, PMs, and even salespeople are now building working apps without touching code. The line between "builder" and "non-builder" is disappearing. 5. Building speed doesn’t eliminate the need for strategy, it amplifies it. When anyone can ship, the most important job becomes deciding what’s worth building. Product discernment is more valuable than ever. 6. Internal use cases drive innovation. The most successful v0 features didn’t come from competitive analysis, they came from real internal needs. If it solves your own team’s pain, it’ll likely solve others’. 7. Your first user is you. This is the core ethos behind v0. If your own team doesn’t use the thing you’re building, something’s wrong. Internal conviction leads to better external adoption. 8. AI won’t be a separate feature, it’ll be the fabric. In the near future, no one will ask “What’s your AI roadmap?” It’ll just be how products get built, used, and improved - quietly running underneath everything. And check out the episode to hear how Tom landed the CPO gig to begin with.

"The value of a prototype is in the insight it imparts, not the code" Prototyping lets us fail fast and cheap, or get the data to make a concrete decision on direction. It helps answer the question, "What happens if we try this?". Most significantly, prototyping provides us with the guardrails to safely and productively fail. Prototyping is the right tool if you have an idea to validate, a clear path to get feedback on, or a proposal requiring further data. It provides crucial insights to move forward. By creating a rough version of a feature or system you've been considering, you gain the flexibility to either discard the idea or fully commit to it. It's a skill that assists product and engineering teams in making pivotal business decisions. Whether it's a website, mobile app, or landing page, no matter what product you're working on, it's always essential to verify your design decisions before shipping them to the end-users. Some development teams delay the validation stage until they have a solution that is almost complete. But that's an extremely risky strategy. As we all know, the later we come across the problem, the more costly it becomes to fix it. Luckily, no matter what point you are in the design process, it is still possible to build and test a concrete image of your concept—a prototype. Consider an architect tasked with designing a grand building. Before laying the first stone, the architect crafts a miniature scale model, allowing them to visualize the end result, understand the project's complexities, and present their ideas convincingly to others. However, this model is far from being the final product; it's a means to an end. This principle applies just as aptly in the world of software development. A software prototype—whether it's a low-fidelity wireframe, a high-fidelity interactive model, or a simplified mock-up of a more complex system—is much like the architect's scale model. It's a visual, often interactive, model of the software that provides developers, stakeholders, and users with an early glimpse into the software's workings, long before the final product is ready. The prototype isn't about the code per se; the code is merely a tool used to create it. Instead, it is about gathering valuable insights, comprehending user needs, identifying functional requirements, validating technical feasibility, and discovering potential stumbling blocks that might arise during full-scale development. The prototype's strength lies in its capacity to provide these insights without necessitating a significant investment of time or resources. I'm a big fan of using prototypes in our work at Google. Their value is often high. Wrapping up... The aim of prototyping is not the prototype itself or its immediate output but the knowledge that comes from it. I wrote more on this topic in https://lnkd.in/gEEGFwJp #softwareengineering #programming #ux #design