How To Get a Prototype Made & Protect Your Design

You’ve got a great idea for a brand-new product. But before jumping into manufacturing, you need a prototype—the first, unreleased version of your product.

While it might be tempting to bypass the prototyping stage and skip straight to selling, creating a prototype usually saves time and money in the long term. You’ll iron out any production issues, understand accurate costings, and fix problems before your customers see your product firsthand.

Not sure how to create the first physical version of your product? This guide shares the prototype development process so you can start mass production with confidence.

What is a prototype?

A prototype is an early, unreleased version of your product. Entrepreneurs make prototypes to see what the finished product would look like, identify flaws, and gather feedback from their target market before investing in mass production.

There are two types of prototypes you can build:

1. Visual prototypes, also known as virtual prototypes, show how your product will look.

2. Functional prototypes, also known as working models, show how your product will work.

According to Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week, “You don’t always need both. You need to understand the purpose of your prototype. Is it for you to assess manufacturing? Is it to sell it back to clients? Is it to test it or sell it on Kickstarter? You need to know your objective and have that in mind first.”

Why do I need a prototype?

• Identify hidden problems
• Get feedback from customers
• Reduce business risk and secure investment

While prototyping might seem unnecessary, creating basic prototypes before mass manufacturing processes can save you time, money, and mistakes. Here’s how:

Identify hidden problems

When developing a new product, inevitably, something won’t work as expected. A prototype can help you refine your idea—or know when to pivot.

The team behind Heyday Canning Co. dreamed of creating a chili crisp dumpling soup, but prototyping revealed that the canning process consistently destroyed the dumplings. While Heyday considered rebranding the item as “broken dumpling soup,” they ultimately focused on other recipes better suited to canning.

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Get feedback from customers

Prototyping allows you to collect early feedback from your target audience and create a product that fulfills their wants and needs.

Ann McFerran, founder of Glamnetic, shares prototypes with friends to get reactions. “I bring my friends along on the journey of testing,” she says on the Shopify Masters podcast. “You need to be inquisitive and not just depend on your own opinion—because you could be skewed in a certain way or not considering all angles.”

As Ann refined the product based on feedback, excitement grew. “By the final prototype, when I handed it to somebody, they were literally freaking out. They were like, ‘This is the craziest beauty product I’ve ever tried,’” she adds. “It got me excited and so much more confident about my own product.”

Reduce business risk and secure investment

It’s risky to invest thousands into manufacturing a product you haven’t tested. Prototyping can help you assess demand—and you don’t need a physical product.

When investors were unsure if customers would actually buyHearth Display—a digital whiteboard for organizing family life—the founders used a visual prototype to make their case. Susie Harrison, one of Hearth’s cofounders, explains on an episode of the Shopify Masters: “We started by quite literally just showing families designs of the actual product designs of the software features—not even a fully baked, engineered software experience but rather just a designed Figma screen of what Hearth could be like.”

How to get a prototype made

1. Protect your intellectual property
2. Create a virtual product prototype
3. Build your first physical prototype
4. Start working with manufacturers
5. Refine your prototype
6. Get feedback
7. Launch a minimum viable product (MVP)

Creating a prototype can take time, but it’s a valuable step in product development. Here are the steps to follow to create your prototype:

1. Protect your intellectual property (IP)

Some suppliers may take your product idea and make it themselves—unless you’ve taken legal steps to protect it. Intellectual property laws can help protect your design and inventions.

Cassidy Caulk, founder of Kindred Label, secured patents before launching the world’s first luxury folding sandal. “You could have the best idea in the world, but if people then go and rip it off [you’re in trouble]. The one thing you can do on the front end is try to protect yourself,” she shares on an episode of Shopify Masters.

Work with an IP lawyer to trademark and patent-protect your design. This usually includes submitting a provisional patent application, documenting proof you made the product, and having it signed and dated before the prototyping process begins.

2. Create a virtual product prototype

After protecting your prototype design, the next step is to visualize your product idea. A digital or sketched prototype helps clarify what should (and shouldn’t) be included in your visual prototyping brief.

The easiest way to create a digital prototype is with a pen and paper. Sketch out your product’s core features, functionality, and potential materials. You could also use visual prototyping software like Figma or Vectr or artificial intelligence (AI) assisted platforms like Uizard or Framer, though they may take more time to learn.

3. Build your first physical prototype

Once you’ve developed a visual concept, the next step is building a physical version of your product prototype. There are three ways to do this.

Make a DIY prototype

Use raw materials to build the prototype yourself. This might mean working with inexpensive materials like paper, cardboard, or plastic.

To create her first folding shoe prototype, Cassidy worked with an inexpensive sandal she found online. “I ordered a pair of sandals off Amazon and just started sawing away at them with a bread knife,” she says. “From there, I went to Michael’s, got different craft materials, and started building this first prototype to give a visualization.”

Pros of DIY prototypes:

• Lower cost—no outsourcing fees

• Less risk of a third-party supplier stealing your product idea

• Easy to test and revise multiple times

• Helps you understand your product’s construction

“Had I not been making samples myself, there’s no way I could have translated the engineering side of our concept to the manufacturing side,” Cassidy says.

Cons of DIY prototypes:

• Requires hands-on skill and time to build from scratch

• Raw materials can be pricey in small quantities

• The iterative process can be slow without external help

Find a third-party prototyping supplier or engineer

Find professional prototype makers if you’d prefer not to go the DIY route—or if you’ve reached the limit of what you can do yourself. After receiving an unusable sample from a manufacturer, Cassidy realized she needed a better prototype before she could move forward.

Cassidy partnered with an engineering company to design the folding mechanism behind Kindred Label’s sandals. It cost more and took longer than expected, but the end result was a functioning prototype ready for shoe manufacturers.

Pros of outsourcing a prototype:

• Expertise from established prototype companies or engineers

• Creates more accurate, test-ready working prototypes 

Cons of outsourcing a prototype:

• It can be expensive

• Harder to find a prototype designer you can trust

• Risk of IP theft without a nondisclosure agreement

Try 3D printing

Use a 3D printer to make a physical version of your computer-aided design (CAD). This rapid prototyping process uses inexpensive materials—such as plastic, rubber, or nylon—to create models of your invention.

Some 3D printing shops also offer AI-based design optimizations to speed up development or reduce waste during rapid prototyping.

Pros of 3D prototyping:

• Cost-effective if you have access to a 3D printer

• Fast turnaround and easy to iterate a physical prototype

Cons of 3D prototyping:

• Limited material types and product sizes 

• Requires CAD skills, computer software, and industrial equipment

• You’ll need access to a 3D printer or expensive CNC machining technology

• Not suitable for functional electronics (like a digital camera)

4. Start working with manufacturers

One of the most challenging steps of the prototyping process is finding the right manufacturer to bring your early prototype to life.

Tim Ferriss advises, “Visit a trade show dedicated to the industry you’re considering getting into, because you will see all of the most reputable distributors and manufacturers at that single event. 

“Once you’ve found a number of manufacturers, put out a proposal to all of them, and let them know you’re putting out multiple proposals. Chances are, you’re not going to impress them if you have a limited budget to put into a first manufacturing run.”

Cassidy Caulk interviewed five different factories to find the right manufacturer for Kindred Label. “For some of them, the concept was a little out-there,” she says. At that point, she had an engineering prototype of her folding sandal, but she needed a manufacturing partner to turn it into a functioning shoe. She ended up choosing a small family-owned factory in Portugal that was excited by the challenge.

5. Refine your prototype

Once you start working with manufacturers, expect to go through several product iterations. That’s why Tim Ferris advises ordering small batches—even if the per-unit cost is higher.

“If you end up wanting to tweak the product, which will almost always happen, you realize there’s a defect, customers don't like feature A, B, or C, or you left something off the label, you need to know or have the ability to pivot and change the product without having to throw out 1,000 units,” Tim says.

For example, many entrepreneurs start with prototype materials that are cheaper or more accessible than their final production materials. That’s fine—just be sure to test at least one prototype using the real thing.

“Our first sample prototypes were made of an acetate that had a slightly different formula,” Charlotte Dickinson, founder of Minus Eyewear, says. “When some of our pattern details were milled into our actual acetate material, it was a little bit more brittle, which created tiny imperfections and consistency issues.”

6. Get feedback

As you refine your prototype, gather feedback from your target market. They can help you understand what works and doesn’t work for them and what features matter most. They can also offer different perspectives that you hadn’t considered.

Identify your target market by:

• Hosting focus groups in your local area

• Researching a competitor’s customer base or social media following

• Putting out a call for beta testers in relevant communities

• Surveying existing customers if you already sell online

Ask questions like:

• Would you buy this product?

• What would you change or improve?

• How much would you pay?

Use their answers to refine your next prototype.

Varun Sharma, cofounder and CMO of Laumière Gourmet Fruits, says, “I believe all feedback you get should be taken with a pinch of salt and analyzed on the impact across the entire customer base. Once we were able to channel feedback better, the process itself got easier.

“People truly enjoy being asked for their feedback. It helps build a strong relationship with them and they provide feedback that makes the prototyping process so much easier.”

7. Launch a minimum viable product (MVP)

Not every new product needs to be perfect before you start selling. A minimum viable product (MVP) is a simplified but functional version you introduce to the market for early product validation.

Once your prototype reaches the MVP stage, consider creating an online store to collect orders from early adopters. With an ecommerce platform like Shopify, you can create an online storefront fast and start promoting your products. Even a few sales can confirm product demand before investing in mass production.

As Varun of Laumière Gourmet Fruits says,: releasing an MVP lets you “get feedback fast and continue to iterate till your product gets better.”

Start making prototypes today

Prototyping takes time, but the investment pays off—you’ll build a stronger, more market-ready product.

If you’re working with third-party prototype makers, protect your idea legally by securing your intellectual property first.

Don’t stop once you’ve made the first prototype. Gather feedback from your target market and validate your product idea before investing in mass production. Launch this MVP through your online store to start making sales and learning what works.