You’re in good company

A few of the companies we’ve worked with.

The costly part is building the wrong thing

Every new product starts with assumptions: who needs it, what they’ll use it for, whether the hard part can be built and what it has to connect to. Building everything before testing them is a slow way to find out which ones were wrong. A discovery tests them first, while changing course is still cheap.

What a discovery answers

A short, focused piece of work, before the build.

  • The people the product serves and the job they need done, from conversations with them, not only from the brief.

    ExamplePeople who drop off a repair before work and need it back the same week.

  • The assumptions the idea rests on, ranked by how much depends on them, each with a way to test it.

    ExamplePeople would rather book online than call. Tested first, with a prototype.

  • The riskiest piece, such as an integration, a complex rule or a data source, prototyped and tried before anything else is built.

    ExampleLive slots from the shop’s calendar. Tried, and it works.

  • The systems, data and accounts the product will need, and who owns each one.

    ExampleThe shop’s calendar, its payments and its customer list, each with an owner.

  • What goes into the first version, what waits and why.

    ExampleBooking and reminders first. Paying online can wait.

  • A range for the first release, and what it depends on.

    ExampleA range for the first release, and what would move it.

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What you have at the end of it

A prototype tried with real users, the technical approach with its riskiest part proven, a scope for the first release, an estimate and a plan, and a short list of the questions still open. Enough to decide whether to build, and what to build first.

A first release, built to keep

A first release is the smallest version of the product that real people can use for the job it’s meant to do. It’s still production software: secure sign-in, real data, tests and monitoring, just less of it. What people do with it decides what comes next, and the next release builds on it rather than starting again.

The full build:Web & App Development →

Not a prototype, not the whole product

A prototype answers a question, then it’s put aside. The whole product takes longer to build, and longer to change. A first release sits between them: small enough to build soon, real enough to learn from, and solid enough to keep.

  • Prototype

    For answering a question, before anything is built.

  • First release

    For real use, built well enough to keep.

  • Whole product

    For everything it will do, once you know what that is.

Questions worth asking

We already know what we want. Do we still need a discovery?

Often a shorter one, focused on the technical risks and the first release’s scope. If the idea has already been tested with users, we start from what you learned.

What if the discovery shows the idea won’t work?

Then you’ve learned it before the full build, while changing course is still cheap. That’s a useful result.

Is a first release the same as a prototype?

No. A prototype tests an idea and is put aside. A first release is real software that people use, built well enough to keep.

Let’s build it better

Tell us about the idea, who it’s for and what you already know. We’ll suggest what to test first, and a sensible first step.

Thanks, we’ll be in touch soon.

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