Get to Prototype
Ideas, without prototypes, are nothing.
It’s vital to get an idea to prototype as soon as practical. An idea sitting in your head languishes in impotence, unrealized and unexamined.
A prototype allows others—and you—to appraise an idea in detail. It allows collaboration, improvement, and criticism. It lets other people contribute to it. It sparks new ideas in other people, who can then prototype their ideas, and so on.
Prototypes are what allows innovators to actually innovate.
The psychic barrier between idea and prototype can be immense. Making a prototype means committing to a specific implementation. It collapses the infinite potential of an idea into a specific point in space and time. And it lays bare the merits and flaws of your idea for all to see, point at, and ridicule—but also admire and improve upon. It’s an essential step in bringing any product to reality.
Ideas, without prototypes, are nothing.