Pretotyping

Why this matters for your decision

The most expensive mistakes in product, pricing and marketing rarely happen during building, but in the question that comes before: whether enough people want the offer at all, and at what price. If you only answer this question after development, production or tariff calculation, you pay for the answer with the entire budget.

Pretotyping moves the answer forward. Instead of asking people whether they would buy a product, you observe whether they choose it when it is realistically offered to them. This matters because stated intentions and actual behaviour diverge systematically: even a large change in intention moves behaviour much less.

Pretotyping is not limited to innovation. It is equally suitable for price tiers, tariff variants, claims, brand names or the question of which offer model (purchase, subscription, rental) is better received.

How Horizon does it

Horizon runs Pretotyping as a Painted Door Test: realistic offer pages, served via Google and Meta ads to real consumers in their usual online environment, without a panel and without incentives. Up to six variants run in parallel, and from the question to the data analysis takes around four weeks.

Nothing is sold: no contract, no payment. Anyone who chooses the offer is told transparently straight afterwards that it is a test. What is measured is purchase intent or sign-up intent, expressed as a click on the offer.

Example

A home appliance manufacturer is considering launching a cordless kitchen machine at three price tiers: €249, €299 and €349. Instead of a survey, three identical offer pages run that differ only in price. After four weeks, measured purchase intent is 3.4%, 3.1% and 1.9%.

The data analysis shows that between €249 and €299 the difference is small and not statistically confirmed, while the jump to €349 costs considerable demand. The team makes the pricing decision, but now on the basis of behaviour rather than declarations of intent.

How it differs

Pretotyping is the umbrella term for methods that test demand before building. Painted Door Test, Smoke Test, Fake Door Test and, especially in the USA, proto-selling essentially mean the same approach; the differences are nuances in how they are used. Horizon uses the terms Pretotyping and Painted Door Test.

A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is already a working, if reduced, product. Pretotyping comes before it and costs a fraction of it. Surveys, concept tests and conjoint analyses measure stated preferences; Pretotyping measures observed behaviour and complements these methods rather than replacing them.

Limitations

Pretotyping measures an independent online decision by consumers. It does not fit when the decision is made elsewhere: in a B2B buying committee, at the shelf in a direct price comparison or on comparison portals. Nor does it answer questions about very cheap items that nobody buys individually, or about brand perception, trust or loyalty.

A pretotype shows whether people choose an offer. Why they do so is better explained by qualitative research. And it measures the first decision, not repeat purchase, usage or satisfaction.