A minimum viable prototype built by combining existing, off-the-shelf components rather than engineering something from scratch. Osterwalder's example: Tesla's early "mule" prototype for the Roadster was a Lotus Elise chassis fitted with a battery pack and electric drivetrain — good enough to test the core hypothesis (an EV people would want to drive) without first solving every engineering problem.
Distinct from later-stage Rapid Multi-Fidelity Prototyping: a mule/Frankenstein prototype specifically reuses whole existing systems (a car chassis, a third-party component) as its base, rather than building purpose-made fidelity levels. The payoff is speed and cost — you learn whether the core idea holds before investing in bespoke engineering, which only becomes justified once the mashup prototype has proven the underlying assumption.
Из тем: The Product Operating Model