Advice is good. Proof is better.

I got asked the other day “why prooflabs?”. As in, why had I named my product & strategy development practice “proofLabs”… and I smiled. Because I love any opportunity to write a post with that includes a “definition of” screenshot type opening. Seriously, it’s my jam. So here goes right from the Google’s mouth:

Let me start with definition #1 and point something out: proof is not definitive all by itself. It is an argument and/or a thing that establishes a possible truth. A truth about your market, your customers, their needs and behaviors. Plus all the assumptions you’ve made about each of those things. I love this. Because so much of the gap between an idea and what you actually ship is figuring out what you should build NOW and NEXT…since you can’t build it all today. I can’t guarantee you what the outcome will be but I sure can help you learn a lot faster and and prioritize the possibilities better. Poke and prod those assumptions. Prioritize the parts of the plan for right now. Find evidence to support.

The second definition “trial prints of something, particular” (a print photography reference originally), is also interesting in its application to design. Most teams never get good at isolating and running “cheap experiments” on their user experience (“UX”), market or business model assumptions. That means they’re often stuck over-building everything they*think* is the right thing at production quality levels before getting feedback from the market. I like to find creative ways to get your end customer to tell us what they really want while building as little as possible. Only then, do I want you to go get the big budget from your boss’s boss.

Speaking of that boss’s boss (or your investors, or a client for that matter), the third definition is also pretty damn apt. By helping teams get good at examining their ideas methodically, and identifying questions worth asking, you actually insulate yourself a bit from the stormy weather that surrounds any finger pointing session. You know the “we’re not quite sure why this didn’t work the way we wanted, and we’re sorry we spent your money” ones I’m talking about. That’s a crappy conversation (I know personally!) to have so if we can make you a bit more finger-pointing proof, then I’ve done my job.

So in short answer to the question “Why proof?”: we’re proofLabs because:

We help teams find the proof they need through the proofing of prioritized hypotheses in order to make themselves finger-pointing proof.

QED

(couldn’t help myself)

p.s. Why labs? Because our approach is both creative and evidence-based. “Labs” reminds us of our commitment to ongoing experimentation, improvement, accountability and the application of only the best of what’s worked in the past.

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