This article is about testing. Testing your products. Testing your company. Testing yourself. It’s counter-intuitive, but you should purposely seek out feedback that your “baby is ugly”.
Most Testing is a Total Waste of Time
I’ve been around the ortho startup scene long enough to see the same mistake over and over. You’re not testing your product seriously. Most of you are stuck in a comfort zone, doing what I call confirmation testing. You are surrounded by KOLs who tell you what you want to hear. It feels good, right? Seeing your device work under the best conditions and patting yourself on the back. But here’s the truth: this kind of testing is a lie.
Testing to Validate vs. Testing to Break
If you’re just running tests to validate your own beliefs about your product, you’re wasting everyone’s time (and money). You’re falling into a trap, avoiding the real, ugly truth about your idea. Real testing isn’t about making yourself feel good; it’s about finding out what breaks and why.
I’m talking about critical testing. The kind where you put your baby on the line and invite criticism. You need to test every single step of the way—your concept, your prototype, your IP, your market fit, your pricing, your business model. You should be begging people to call your baby ugly. Because that’s where the real learning happens. That’s how you get better.
The Sunny Beach Resort Fallacy
Too many companies are testing their ortho devices in the equivalent of a sunny beach resort. It’s comfortable, predictable, and unrealistic. You need to be testing in the equivalent of a stormy night at sea—tough, gritty, and unpredictable. Picture this: a pilot learning a new maneuver. Do they practice it for the first time in a live emergency landing with 200 passengers onboard? Hell no. They push the limits in a high-fidelity simulator where they can fail without consequences. This is the approach you need in ortho.
Test your prototypes under harsh patient scenarios, with unexpected complications, under the hands of surgeons who don’t believe in your product. This is where you uncover the real weaknesses of your device. It’s where you’ll find the friction points that make or break your product in the real world. Mauricio Toro summed it up well in this short video.
Your Best Demo Is Your Biggest Lie
I’ve seen it too many times—startups doing perfect demos at their most polished sites with the best product manager and cherry-picked patients. Sure, it looks great, but it’s a farce. What happens when your device lands in a chaotic, understaffed clinic with a user who missed the training session? This is your reality check.
Your device needs to thrive in the messiness of the real world, not just in the lab or under the spotlight of a polished demo. If you’re not stress-testing your device in these scenarios, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
Embrace Failure to Achieve Real Success
E.O. Wilson nailed it: “Test a trivial theory, and you get a trivial answer.” If you’re not pushing your product to the brink, you’re not learning anything valuable. Put your ortho innovations through the toughest trials. Iterate based on failure, not on what makes you feel good. That’s where true innovation happens.
This is the only way to ensure your product isn’t just a shiny object that looks good in a demo but a robust, reliable solution that holds up under the harsh conditions of real clinical use. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Your success depends on it.