Article · 8 min read
How Zappos Built a Product By Faking It
Alex Ponomarev Free Beginner
Nick Swinmurn tested whether people would actually buy shoes online by photographing shoes he did not own and buying them at retail only after a real order came in. The unit economics were terrible, but real orders, not survey answers, proved the demand that later raised the capital to build real inventory.
- Order velocity, not stated interest, is what proved the business idea.
- You can test a real purchase decision before you have built any real infrastructure behind it.
- It is fine to lose money on the test itself. The point is measuring whether people will actually buy.
