Memo to Demo
Replace abstract proposals with working prototypes people can test
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 99%
Memo to Demo changes the unit of organizational communication from a description of an idea to an experience of that idea. Instead of preparing slides, wireframes, or a long memo, the proposer uses rapid-building tools to create the smallest working prototype that expresses the core concept. Stakeholders can then interact with the proposal, identify hidden assumptions, and judge its value using shared evidence. The resulting conversation becomes more concrete: people can discuss what happened rather than debating what different words might mean. The method also encourages autonomy and a bias toward action because employees no longer need to wait for specialist capacity before testing many ideas. A demo is not treated as production-ready software; it is a faster instrument for communication, learning, and validation.
Origin
Kieran described a company offsite where game-changing ideas that once would have been presented through slides and wireframes were instead demonstrated as working prototypes. Extracted from Marketing Against The Grain.
Core principles
- 01A working artifact communicates more than an abstract description
- 02Action produces evidence that discussion cannot
- 03Fast prototypes make ambitious ideas easier to evaluate
- 04Validation should begin before organizational consensus is complete
How to run it
- 1
Select the claim to demonstrate
State what the idea is supposed to let a user accomplish. Reduce the proposal to one testable experience.
Pro tip Frame the claim as an observable user action.
Watch out A vague ambition will produce a demo that proves nothing.
- 2
Build the essential interaction
Create a lightweight working version that makes the central idea tangible. Exclude features that do not improve understanding.
Pro tip Use AI tools to compress the path from concept to interaction.
Watch out Do not spend prototype time imitating production polish.
- 3
Show rather than describe
Let stakeholders use or watch the working flow before presenting extensive explanation. Allow the artifact to expose assumptions directly.
Pro tip Give viewers a realistic task to complete.
Watch out A scripted happy path can conceal important weaknesses.
- 4
Validate the idea
Capture where the experience creates value, confusion, or disagreement. Decide whether to iterate, expand, or stop based on that evidence.
Pro tip Ask what changed in the evaluator's understanding after using the demo.
Watch out Positive excitement is not equivalent to customer demand.
In the wild
At a San Francisco ThinkBake offsite, participants pitched ideas intended to shape the company over five years. Instead of relying on presentations and wireframes, participants brought prototypes that colleagues could use as real software.
→ The group evaluated ambitious ideas through tangible experiences rather than abstract presentations.
After discussing an idea on the podcast, Kieran wrote it up, built it in Lovable, attached a domain, and made it live within about five minutes. The public artifact made the concept immediately inspectable.
→ An idea moved from conversation to a live testable artifact without a conventional development handoff.
Common mistakes
Building a disguised production system
Adding every edge case and operational requirement defeats the purpose of using the demo to accelerate understanding.
Demonstrating without validating
A prototype creates little value if the team admires it but never tests the assumptions it represents.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for teams evaluating product, marketing, workflow, or customer-experience ideas that can be represented by a lightweight prototype.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when building even a prototype would expose users to unacceptable legal, security, or safety risks.
From the transcript
“I call it the transition from memo to demo.”
“And like every presentation was a prototype, right? I had a prototype, everyone had a prototype. So you could use real software and kind of…”
“Take action, try things, go out there and validate your ideas.”
From the episode
The Startup Letting 99% of People Build Apps Without Code