pretotyping.org · Starting Up

📖 Book

✓ Link checked Free Beginner

A free, short predecessor to The Right It for when you want the method without buying a book. It lays out cheap experiments (fake buttons, manual concierge, pre-orders) that reveal whether people will act, not just nod. Worth reading before you spend a single rupee on building.

Pretotype It (free PDF)

From pretotyping.org by Alberto Savoia ~90 pages

Test the core experience with the smallest possible time and money.
Watch what people do when asked to commit, not what they say.
A single well-run experiment can kill or confirm an idea in a day.

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Answers How do I talk to customers without them just telling me what I want to hear? How do I turn a vague hunch that something is broken into a sharp, testable idea? How do I test whether people will actually pay, not just say they like it? Is a waitlist with a lot of signups actual proof of demand? How do I validate demand in India when people love a free product but won't pay for it? How do I honestly test my founder-market fit before I quit my job? What are the questions that quietly ruin an interview by leading the person to the answer I want?

🛠️ Tool

✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

When you cannot easily reach users, cheap tests can substitute for some of the hard questions, and pretotyping gives you the techniques to fake a product and measure real demand for pennies. Savoia, a former Google director, shows how to test whether people will actually use a thing before you build any of it. The free book and technique summaries are all on the site.

Pretotype It: Make Sure You Are Building the Right It

From Pretotyping.org by Alberto Savoia

Test demand with a fake or mocked version first
Measure real behaviour, not what people say they will do
Kill or confirm an idea in days instead of months

Open pretotyping.org →

Answers How do I find a problem worth solving in an industry I have never worked in? How do I validate an idea when I'm building outside the big startup hubs and don't have easy access to target users? Is a waitlist with a lot of signups actual proof of demand?

📖 Book

✓ Link checked Free Intermediate

Savoia's pretotyping approach forces you to define, before you show anyone anything, exactly what a real reaction would look like versus a polite one. His XYZ hypothesis format ("at least X% of Y will Z") gives you a measurable line in the sand so you're not relying on your own read of a fuzzy conversation. It's the clearest antidote to a founder convincing themselves a shrug was enthusiasm.

Pretotype It

From pretotyping.org by Alberto Savoia ~80 pages

Decide what counts as a real signal before you run the test, not after.
Watch for what people do (the Z), not what they say they'd do.
A cheap pretotype that answers the real question beats a polished one that doesn't.

Open pretotyping.org →

Answers How do I show a prototype to users without biasing their reaction?