A robot made lunch
The founders expected feedback on the food. Customers questioned the machine.
The situation
A founder I spoke with was developing an automated food preparation system. He and his co-founder had spent considerable time researching the market, speaking with potential customers, and understanding what would make the business viable.
They had a good sense of the opportunity, but there were still questions about how people would respond to food prepared by a machine. They needed something customers could experience firsthand.
The plan
The team spent several months developing their first working prototype. It could dispense ingredients and assemble a basic food bowl, but many of the functions planned for the final product were still missing.
There was no heating or cooling, and bowls had to be loaded and removed manually. Even with those limitations, the founders decided they had enough to invite potential customers and commercial partners to see the machine in action.
Where uncertainty remained
The founders wanted to understand whether people would be comfortable eating food prepared by a machine and what concerns might prevent them from using it.
When customers arrived, they were fascinated by the technology, but they also started asking questions about cleanliness. How was the machine cleaned? Could insects get inside? How could they know the food was safe?
The team had already considered many of these issues during development. What they hadn't appreciated was how difficult it was for customers to understand what was happening inside an enclosed machine.
What they learned
After hearing those concerns, the team removed some of the metal panels and replaced them with transparent acrylic. The prototype wasn't particularly attractive, but customers could now see how the food was being prepared.
When the next group came through, questions about cleanliness decreased. Other concerns remained, including how the machine would be restocked and how cross-contamination would be prevented.
Each round of testing helped the founders understand what customers needed to feel comfortable using the product. They were learning things that surveys and market research hadn't revealed, while much of the hardware was still unfinished.
The pattern
It's easy to keep adding functionality to a hardware prototype before showing it to customers. There are always more features to develop, technical issues to resolve, and improvements that would make the product feel more complete.
But the longer you wait, the more decisions you're making without seeing how customers respond to what you're building.
At Hardware Velocity, we work backward from what the next prototype needs to prove. That helps determine which functions are necessary for the next customer test and which can wait until there's more evidence to guide development.