There are quite a few non-obvious values of prototype efforts, which have a very positive effect on a PD business venture. One of the salient benefits is more of a prototyping philosophy; it's called FAIL EARLY AND FAIL OFTEN (FEFO). One of the pioneers in the implementation of this philosophy is IDEO Product Development. IDEO not only talks about it, but they actually do it… although, it is sometimes difficult to convince clients that this process is worth the ostensibly extra expenses incurred during development. Experience has shown that it is well worth it.

The FEFO concept means that moving through several prototype stages quickly and measurably is extremely helpful in maturing a product in the least amount of time and at minimal (overall) cost. Quickly finding mistakes and wrong decisions and better / cheaper ways to test early in the PD process is much less costly and time consuming than doing these later in the process, as the illustration of a typical PD business process below exemplifies. Investment increases almost exponentially the further one gets into the PD process. Thus the extra costs of prototyping up-front will more than make up for 're-spin' costs in the later stages.