- Exhibit
- 01 · Fortiut
- Status
- Never launched · early 2024
- What we believed
- A small bet on a product could help shoppers and help retailers clear stock.
- What we made
- A research plan, three personas, an interview guide and a £400 budget.
- Where we got stuck
- Many bosses and no direction, strict gambling rules, and no one close to the people we were designing for. Above all, nobody loved the product.
- The question it left us
- Would the world be better if this worked?
Fortiut was a marketplace game. You would place a small bet on something you wanted and couldn’t afford outright. Retailers would clear stock and gain visibility. Fortiut would earn each time a bet connected the two. On paper it looked tidy: grow demand, keep supply balanced, keep the items good.
We did the homework
In February 2024 we wrote a proper research plan. Three personas: the lucky bettor, the smart gambler and the offline raffle buyer. Three to five interviews, a £400 budget, and the UK and US first, as the largest online gambling markets. The plan even asked the right uncomfortable question: how would someone feel after losing?
Four things went wrong at once
- We couldn’t sit beside the people we were designing for. Nobody in our circle gambled. You can’t design well for people you can’t observe.
- Many bosses, no direction. A side project with several owners and no one person deciding. Design recommendations were made, and not followed.
- The rules arrived before the users. Offering remote gambling to people in Great Britain needs a Gambling Commission licence, even from abroad, and licensees must join the national self-exclusion scheme. In the US it is decided state by state.
- Nobody loved it. Not socially, not economically. We came to believe it could do more harm than good.
The best reason to stop
Any one of the first three could have been fixed with time, money or a clearer team. The fourth couldn’t. If you wouldn’t want a product to win, that is the answer. No amount of research changes it, and it is cheaper to hear it from yourselves before launch than from your users after it.
We weren’t excited about the product. And we believed it could do more harm than good.
What we’d try now
- Ask “should this exist?” before “can we build it?” Write the answer down and revisit it after the first interviews.
- Only design for people you can reach. If you can’t observe them, the first job is finding a way to.
- Read the rules before the business model. Regulation decides what the product can be.
- Name one person who decides. Research nobody acts on is wasted.