How to Prototype Your Digital Products

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Before starting Profit Ladder, I spent 25 years working in tech.

Of all the lessons I learned about how to create super successful products, the most important was to treat everything like a prototype.

Every post in this newsletter is a prototype. The engagement metrics (e.g. open/click rates, polls, comments, replies) from last Sunday’s edition helped to make today’s better.

The last sales email you wrote to your prospective client is a prototype. The prospect ignored it, but then you iterated the subject line and your open and click rates improved.

The webinar you ran last month was a prototype. The attendees left feeling confused. But then you added a story with helpful context and the attendees in the next one were buzzing (that’s a good thing).

It doesn’t matter if it’s your first iteration or fiftieth.

When you treat everything you create as a prototype, you swap the goal from “Did I win?” to “Did I learn?”

From perfection to progress.

It’s our race to perfection, even from the first attempt, that keeps us stuck in inaction.

Prototypes disrupt our perfectionist habits. In doing so, it removes a ton of unnecessary pressure we put on ourselves.

Prototyping your digital products

I’ve been talking with more and more founders the past couple of weeks. I ask about their hopes and fears with growing their businesses in 2024.

About building flywheels.

About generating passive income.

About turning a core service into their first digital product.

Of the 33 founders I spoke with, the ones feeling stuck reported not knowing how to get started.

Guess what I helped them figure out? It starts with a “p” and ends in “type.”

Fucking prototype that shit.

(P.S. I’m prototyping my more authentic, New Jersey tone. We curse a lot. Must be all the people living on top of one another.)

But how do I prototype?

In a previous post, I shared a strategy for discovering your wedge product. A wedge is a prototype.

But let’s take it a step further today. Say you’re curious about launching an online, self-paced course in 2024.

How do you create your course prototype?