Director of Operations Martin Ashby gave insight into Prevayl’s unique processes of building a product, testing facility and navigating logistics in the midst of a pandemic.
Prevayl have built something completely unique, how do processes and operations differ at Prevayl?
We encourage everyone who works at Prevayl to be curious and we accept that we will move forward faster if we openly share details of what fails, as well as what succeeds, with the wider team.
As such, everyone feels safe taking risks and making big decisions and this has enabled us to take significant steps forward and get things done quickly.
How was it managing building a product and logistics in the middle of a pandemic?
Covid-19 could have been a disaster for the business, especially as we are trying to create a physical product but the team and our manufacturing partners have been superb; we’ve had to up our game and are now really efficient at communicating requirements over email. Teams, Zoom and WhatsApp.
I can’t wait to get back to being able to meet the whole team face to face though!
How are the teams at Prevayl different to your prior roles?
The teams aren’t really different, but the inventiveness, energy and focus of everyone has been superb, especially through these difficult Covid-19 times.
I think that’s testimony to the amazing culture that the CEO and investors have championed.
What advice would you give to other start-ups about to embark on building a unique product?
You’ve got to believe in your product, clearly define the minimum viable product you need to deliver, have a clear plan, hire the best people you can afford, set regular milestones so that you know where you’re going, celebrate achieving every milestone.
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and ensure you laugh a lot!
The Prevayl products saw many iterations to “get it right”, why did Prevayl do this?
Prevayls product is made of many complex features and they all need to work for the product to work, so we had to create everything in a specific order so that if something failed, we knew what it was. This meant that we had to deliver several iterations of the product en route to the launch product.
We were lucky that it went quite smoothly, don’t get me wrong, we still had a few sketchy moments, but I guess hiring the best people and having such an open culture helped us deliver our product so quickly.
You were heavily involved with the testing of the products, why was this?
You’ve got to eat what you cook!
Prevayl’s employees will be the biggest critics of what we deliver and they all need to understand how it works and be excited about using it; without that, they’re just going through the motions rather than creating an amazing consumer experience.
Oh, and I’m crazy about health and fitness, so there was no way I wasn’t going to test it!
How does it feel seeing the finished product, after the extensive work that has gone into it?
It feels amazing.
Although we are all so excited about our product’s potential, that we’re already working on new features so that we can continue to provide insight that will improve the wellbeing of consumers for many year’s to come.