Prototyping just got much cheaper
Until very recently, building a prototype to test an idea was a real investment. You needed time, design skills, often a developer. Many founders skipped this step and went straight to building the real product — only to find out months later that the underlying idea didn’t fit.
AI changes the economics. A reasonable prototype of almost any product idea can now be put together in hours, sometimes in a single afternoon. Not just static mockups — interactive interfaces with working logic, real-looking responses, and enough behaviour to test specific assumptions.
Used well, this dramatically speeds up the learning loop. You can prototype, test, learn, and iterate before committing to a full build. Used badly, it can make you confident in a prototype that does...
