There was a startup at University of Delaware called Revive. The idea was tinder for clothing swaps.
The idea went like this: First, girls upload pictures of clothes they don’t want. Then, they swipe left or right on items of clothing posted by other girls. If two girls both swipe right on each other’s item of clothing, they match, and they can meet up to swap items. It’s a win win. You get rid of clothes you don’t want anymore and get a new item for free.
The problem is that it’s expensive to build an app and no one knew if this concept would work. There was a lot of uncertainty surrounding clothing swaps. Would people do it? Would they enjoy it? Would swapping clothes be too weird?
It turns out, when the main concern is uncertainty about the concept, building an app is not the cheapest or fastest way to test that uncertainty. It’s the most straightforward way and the way most people want to pursue, but it’s not efficient.
The best way to test uncertainty is to answer some difficult questions about the essence of the application. What is the critical interaction the app facilitates? In this case the critical interaction was the mutual agreement to swap clothes. When you get down to that essence, the focus on an app goes away because you first need to see if that interaction works for live human beings.
Thus Revive started hosting live clothing swaps. They invited girls to bring clothes they no longer wanted. Each girl labeled their clothing and got labels to put on items of interest. Throughout the evening matches were made and swaps happened. It did, in fact, work as an idea.
In addition to having validation of the idea, the team now had 50 people who came to their event and experienced the magic. 50 testimonials. 50 beta users. Traction. Most importantly, they had a small win under their belts.
That’s what happens when you drill down to the essence. You get rid of the arbitrary requirements that are expensive and time consuming to build. You move faster and learn more. Prototype interactions before applications.