Prototyping is a critical component in the journey from vision to execution. A prototype is an early model of your product that allows you to test basic concepts and functionality. This allows founders to rapidly validate their assumptions, uncover design flaws, and focus on user experience without expending significant resources. Gregory Shepard stresses that presenting a prototype—no matter how rough—to prospective customers and advisory boards is invaluable for obtaining early feedback and ensuring product alignment with actual needs. In his words, “A prototype is how you start building trust—not just with customers, but with investors too.”
Moreover, prototyping saves time and resources by preventing you from fully developing features or solutions that may ultimately fail in the market. Shepard emphasizes that striving for perfection at this stage is a trap; instead, founders should prioritize progress over perfection. By focusing on building quickly and learning extensively, startups can iterate their way to a market-ready solution.
The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a functional version of your product with just enough features to satisfy early adopters and gather actionable feedback. The purpose of an MVP is not just to showcase your idea, but to test its alignment with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). According to Greg, the MVP should solve a specific and urgent problem and demonstrate measurable value to its users. This is a critical step in answering whether your product truly addresses a pain point customers care about—and if they’d be willing to pay for it.
Building an MVP also requires startups to prioritize ruthlessly. Instead of trying to build the perfect solution all at once, founders should focus on core features that enable quick feedback cycles. By releasing an MVP as early as feasible, entrepreneurs gain the opportunity to test product-market fit in real-world scenarios. Shepard notes that this iterative loop of “build-measure-learn” prepares startups for scalability by refining the product’s value proposition and usability based on customer and market insights.
Advisory boards act as sounding boards and strategic advisors, guiding startups through critical decisions from prototyping to MVP development. These boards are typically composed of industry experts, experienced entrepreneurs, and sometimes early-stage users, all of whom offer diverse perspectives. Their feedback is essential for identifying gaps, foreseeing potential challenges, and offering solutions that align with your long-term goals.
Greg advises leaning heavily on both Industry Advisory Boards (IABs) for market trends and User Advisory Boards (UABs) for customer-centric insights. Beyond advisory feedback, these boards can also uncover opportunities and provide credibility to your startup. When presenting your prototype or MVP to them, their reactions often mirror the responses you can expect from investors and initial customers, allowing you to refine your pitch and iterate your product intelligently.
A Product Manager plays a central role in bridging the gap between development teams and customers. Their mission is to advocate for customers by ensuring that their pain points and needs are a priority during product development. Greg emphasizes that Product Managers need to engage regularly with user advisory boards, gathering firsthand insights into potential features and bottlenecks while ensuring that product iterations remain aligned with market demands.
Customer advocacy also extends to storytelling. By building narratives around how the product improves the lives of its users, Product Managers can drive enthusiasm among stakeholders and secure traction with early adopters. The ultimate goal, as Gregory puts it, is not just building a product, but creating an experience that users feel solves their challenges authentically and effectively.
Securing pre-seed funding during this phase enables you to transition from prototyping to MVP development. These early funds allow startups to allocate resources carefully, such as hiring key technical talent or engaging in rapid iteration cycles. Gregory notes that pre-seed rounds typically range from $200,000 to $500,000, and focus on validating the startup’s foundations—not achieving massive scale. Importantly, convincing investors during this stage relies heavily on demonstrating progress via a high-quality prototype or an early-stage MVP, along with a clear vision of what comes next.
Pre-seed funding also builds investor trust by demonstrating consistent results and metric-driven progress. Shepard stresses that preparation is key—your pitch should clearly communicate how you are aligning milestones like MVP validation and initial market feedback with your long-term growth goals. Aligning a clear funding ask with stated deliverables increases your startup's chances of securing the backing needed for the next stage.
Testing and iteration are the lifeblood of this phase, enabling startups to refine their products and processes based on continuous feedback. Gregory Shepard highlights the importance of releasing your prototype as soon as it’s functional, stating that “waiting for perfection only delays progress.” Testing allows you to gauge user reactions, identify pain points, and uncover hidden opportunities, all while reducing the risks associated with blind scaling.
Iteration builds on testing by ensuring actionable feedback translates into meaningful improvements. Successful startups create feedback cycles rooted in customer insights gained from advisory boards, beta testers, and early adopters. By embracing an iterative mindset, founders can adapt quickly to challenges while demonstrating responsiveness—both traits highly valued by future investors and acquirers.
Validation sets the foundation for scaling your MVP. Startups must ensure that their product delivers the intended benefits to their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), addressing real-world problems effectively. Validation involves collecting both qualitative and quantitative data from users to confirm that the MVP solves the targeted pain point and that customers are willing to pay for its value.
Greg emphasizes leveraging this validated data to communicate progress to stakeholders and investors. It serves as proof not just of product-market fit, but also of your ability to evolve your offering based on market needs. Validation de-risks your startup, signaling scalability potential and building confidence among investors, advisors, and eventual acquirers.
