Prototyping Expert

Building prototypes is a core part of Business Design – it's how teams learn about key aspects of their product, service, or business model. Often, Project Teams cannot build these prototypes on their own. That is why we need Prototyping Experts. Here you'll learn what a Prototyping Expert does, what mindset and skills they need, and how they differ from classical engineers.

Markus Sorg

Business Design Prototyper

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The Prototyping Expert is a key member of the extended Project Team. They help the team build prototypes to learn about their Business Models and ideas. They understand the most important parts of Business Models, think in experiments, build things quickly, and know what prototypes do to people. As a Prototyper, you are responsible for supporting the Project Team in building their prototypes throughout the innovation process. Here are some examples:

Building Landing Page variations for new products or business models
Building wireframes, mockups, click-dummies or hardware prototypes
Building fully-blown Lean Offerings to generate first revenue
Supporting experimental setups and data collection
Setting up dashboards to measure the results of experiments

Beyond building, you coordinate with the Project Team and external stakeholders on prototypes and Lean Offerings. You take the team along on the prototyping journey – you know where they will struggle and how to support them in unfamiliar territory. AI tools can massively speed up prototyping. We use them extensively throughout the process.

The table below shows example activities for a Prototyper in Phase IV of the End-to-End Innovation Process:

Phase	Activities
Design	Supporting the Project Team in the Design Workshop with early prototypes (e.g. scribbles, landing pages)
Validate	Helping the Project Team find the right prototype for their experiments (e.g. during or after the Validate Workshop) Helping the Project Team define technical requirements for prototypes and Lean Offerings / MVPs Building prototypes of different kinds Software prototypes: scribbles, mockups, click-dummies Process & service prototypes Hardware prototypes Building Lean Offerings (design, development, deployment, infrastructure) Building or integrating dashboards and tracking solutions Coordinating external suppliers

Many people assume prototyping and engineering are the same thing. They are not. Prototyping requires a different skill set – more full-stack, covering design, frontend, backend, and infrastructure. It demands a different mindset, different tools, and different trade-offs around time, technology, performance, and design. Here is what that looks like side by side:

A Prototyper...	An Engineer...
...thinks in experiments, hypotheses to test & business models (with its DNA)	...thinks in scalable software/hardware in terms of architecture, performance etc.
...is used to working with very unclear requirements	...works closely along specifications and requirements
...is proactive and fills the gaps (there are a lot in these early stages)	...is reactive and waits for a Jira ticket
...is more of a generalist (design AND frontend AND backend AND infrastructure)	...is more of a specialist (design OR frontend OR backend OR infrastructure)
...takes every shortcut to be fast	...spends a lot of time choosing the right approach
...communicates well with non-technical stakeholders	...communicates well with technical stakeholders
...has a prototyping mindset (make it work → make it right → make it fast)	...has an engineering mindset (make it right & make it fast & make it work)
...understands what prototypes do to people (socially, emotionally...)	...understands the technical side of prototypes

Understanding these differences matters when you look for prototyping support in your Project Team. Working with someone who does not know what to build, how to build it, and what matters along the way will slow you down – significantly.