The Prototyping Trap
Communities are prototyping machines.
I remember in my first class at university, the professor said on day 1: "The university is the marketplace of ideas." I loved that thought. It was true-ish, but after 4 years, I left feeling somewhat unconvinced. I was taught a lot – but were professors open to new ideas? Not always. It may have been true at one point, but not entirely. Online communities are the new universities.
Online communities are where new ideas emerge.
Let me explain. Well-intentioned members will give you pieces of unsolicited feedback that kinda ruin your day. Your MVPs will come up with new product ideas you could've never dreamed up on your own. You have an epiphany yourself because you're connecting people and ideas that have never been merged before. It's full of bad ideas, good ideas, & so-so ideas. Community is a superior-to-Chat-GPT-4o brainstorming genius.
… But sometimes, because of the sheer amount of ideas present, the strategy can get sloppy.
The Prototyping Trap
A few years ago, I was working as a community lead at a cafe in Los Angeles. On average, we served nearly 300 college students every day. Our team took the pandemic pretty hard, and it meant we were skittish to try out IRL (in-real-life) events again. Masks and plastic barriers at the register were commonplace across LA. And as a result, the thing that had set us apart ― true, genuine interest in each customer ― had massively waned. Although we tried to connect, our baristas often missed the mark. Students also weren't looking for new people to engage with; it was a tough time for our cafe.
As someone responsible for building community in the space, I got to work. I knew that in order for us to breakthrough to a sense of what we had before the pandemic, we needed to get more creative.
I suggested an idea I was passionate about: Let's offer free coffee tastings to the public. Initially my team was reticent. Pragmatic questions dominated the conversation: How could we do this safely? What about germ spread with cupping spoons? 6-feet? (Sorry to bring these dark days back to memory.) Their concerns were nothing but valid. I accepted their pushback and yet still wanted to find a way to make it happen.
I continue to share idea after idea. I handled the objections, and they still weren't ready for an IRL event. I eventually said, "Y'all, we just need to prototype it!" The cafe manager at the time pushed back again, and suggested that we prototype… the prototype. It killed the momentum our team was developing. Our prototype's prototype ended up being a trap.
We got stuck ideating too many theoretical solutions ― it meant it took us forever to get to the startling line.
What Prototyping Misses
I recently spoke with a professor from Tel Aviv University's Int'l Business School. She teaches the core classes for its MBA program and I asked her, "What is the one thing you struggle to deconstruct with new students?" Her answer was emphatic: "Design thinking doesn't work." I was honestly surprised to hear her say this. She went on to say, "Students have lost what it means to be strategic executors. We have a lot of 'prototypers' who don't know how to make tough decisions anymore."
For years, I thought design thinking could solve almost anything. But the more experience I gain, the more I realize how she's spot on. We can't prototype everything. Hard decisions need to be made, lines need to be drawn, and we need to get to work.
Don't get me wrong: every business needs to experiment. A/B testing new solutions is good. But prototyping loses its power once it functionally amounts to either inaction or absurdity.
Prototyping works best when teams are:
Not afraid of conflict. (See Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team if you disagree).
Ready to prototype strategically, favoring critical thinking > silly blue-sky ideation.
Have a bias toward action.
Prototyping is and should always be fun. We all get joy from creating theoretical solutions and seeing them executed in the real world.
Communities will give you ideas to consider prototyping. But you as the founder hold the line on your culture and direction.
If you're reading this, you're likely not seeing yourself as being susceptible to the prototyping trap. Yet, I've seen founders take on nearly any idea once their communities aren't working how they were designed to work. I get it. Prototyping is tempting. But it could be a trap.
Use your "founder gut" and make the best strategic calls for your community.
Next week, I’ll share an effective strategy to implement prototyping the right way into your community. Stay tuned.
