The Power of a Prototype

In the entrepreneurial world, we talk about prototypes a lot. A mock up. A start. A working prototype. An advanced prototype. There are plenty of them. 

In short, they really only have one key job. To deliver value to the user in its smallest form.

So, if you’re solving a huge pain point for a customer, even by chipping away at a small element of a problem with that prototype, you’re delivering value to your customer. It doesn’t matter if it’s clunky, or even ugly. If the problem you’re trying to solve is bad enough, users will lap up any solution they can get their hands on.

You can worry about solving a wider problem with fancy features later - first, start with your ‘must haves’. What’s going to take away some of that pain?

We’ve iterated a number of times since our first prototype; a basic push button camera unit which was retrofitted into a number of test sites.

One of which, is Yoo.com. 

YOO is a global brand of developers, place-makers and designers. 

Back in 2019, we fitted our prototype into their head office in London. In the present day, Yoo are still using this same prototype and aren’t interested in changing to a later model. Simply because it meets their needs and solves their pain points. They no longer struggle with finding a simple way to streamline access control - we’ve taken their pain away. 

In turn, they’ve become customer advocates for a bit of technology that is, technically, 2 years old and outdated. We’ve added some much cooler features since then. But, because it solves a problem, the customer has adopted this technology and is an advocate for it. 

YOO are one of our early adopters.

TouchByte’s Facentry technology has enabled significant improvements in access for staff members, enabling them access a space with less friction, in less time.

“People are adopting for convenience now more than ever. Facial recognition, once it’s polished with AI algorithms, will be the next big trend after electric vehicles and green energy.”  – Wassim ElBizri, Head of Technology, YOO.

These early adopters, who supported us from the get-go, enabled us to pivot, iterate and develop our technology into a far more user-friendly device, into the UCMeC, which is completely contactless and technically, far more impressive.

What’s our lesson learnt? Never underestimate the power of a prototype, or your early adopters. They become the foundation blocks in your product journey.