Marketing simulation of a prototype without having an actual prototype? Go or No Go?

Hi Guys,

I am currently launching a B2C dog food subscriptions company with a digital sales channel only. Our investors wanted us to check for any market traction pre-launch to give some premature proof of concept. We thought of doing a marketing simulation on a local scope to see how people would react to our add's, their interaction with our landing pages and wether our most wanted action would create enough leads (visitors would give up their email to get acces to our "soon te be launched prototype" at a discount rate). However, our prototype is not ready yet. Our dogfood formula is ready and can be produced in 2 weeks time, but of course the MOQ is too big compared to the small amount of initial volume we aim to sell. Since our goal is to generate 200 leads in 2 months time. we want to propose a prototype waiting list so customers will be notified when we are ready to soft launch.

This got me questioning the following aspects of this strategy:

1) What is the period in which we have to commit to deliver a tangible prototype to the customer without creating any damage or bad repute to the brand? Should we communicate an estimated timeline?

2) Isn't offering a 50% discount, or any discount for that matter, going to bias the motivation for the customer to subscribe? Hence, delivering us a data pool of biased customer's behavior?

3) Should we use to time, after the customer signed-up and before the actual launch of the prototype, keep up communication with the customers by means of a newsletter, and/or customer surveys. I honestly am prepared to lose these 200 leads, as long as I get any relevant data out of them which can help me develop the prototype and customer service.

I would really like to hear your opinion on the matter! thanks in advance guys!

Cheers,

Victor-Henry