Elaborate

Sample techniques to elaborate on your solution...

You may consider some additional prototyping techniques valuable to provide increasingly realistic versions of your solution to users. Here are a few examples:

Wizard of Oz

Provide your product or service using human power behind the scenes in place of components that would be automated in your final solution.

Consider EasyJob as an example. EasyJob is a mobile app that connects illiterate migrants with temporary jobs. During prototyping, the team provided employers with real migrant employees using a minimally functional app to test a prototype of the online user experience.

EasyJob elaborated on their original paper prototype with a functional prototype that showed illiterate migrants a text-free interface and videos of employers.

Lead Generation

Validate user desire for your solution by testing how easy it is to generate user/customer leads.

For example, Nimble, a teacher-recruiting venture, created a sales/pitch deck to share with school district HR teams at a conference to determine receptiveness and willingness to pay.

As another example, Nala, a business focused on increasing access to financial services in East Africa, wanted to test the value propositions of two different products. Nala created two websites--one focused on one product and the second focused on the other. They invited users to sign up for an upcoming alpha pilot. They promoted the pilot through multiple channels (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, adword purchase) and pointed different potential users to one of the two websites. By comparing the response rate from the two websites, Nala made their decision of which product to pursue. The customer conversion rates also informed their understanding of user acquisition costs.

Sample techniques to elaborate on your business model...

Update Impact Business Model Canvas (IBMC)

Continue to keep your Impact Business Model Canvas up-to-date as you learn from your testing and identify new key questions to test. For example, you may not be sure what revenue model is the best fit for your solution. After brainstorming options, settle on a limited number to test.

Build a unit economic model to understand your costs and revenue needs per user.
Explore what your business model could look like with two different hypothesis: one where your business is structured as a nonprofit and one where it’s structured as a for-profit.
Identify possible revenue streams. For example:
- User pays - Test willingness to pay. For example, collect sign-ups for your alpha product with a clear indication of price (for a consumer solution) or get a signed letter of intent (LOI) or memo of understanding (MOU) from enterprises that includes an indication of pricing.
- Advertising - Test attractiveness to advertisers by pitching agencies or marketers with a budget. Understand willingness to pay per impression or click to develop an understanding of your economic model.
- Membership / subscribers - Determine whether your solution is attractive enough to attract members willing to pay or donate to support your activities.
- Donor - Establish a small pilot and pitch for support from large donors or set up a crowdfunding site.

You will also want to prototype and test ways to get your solution in the hands of multitudes of users. This can be a user acquisition or distribution model and may involve organizational or government partners.

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