See the original story in Japanese.

Japan’s Goodpatch has been providing rapid prototyping tool Prott in beta since April, but it was officially launched on Wednesday. Coinciding with this, they introduced an iOS app for prototyping as well as existing web apps for Macintosh and Windows. This newly introduced version is integrated with internal communication tools such as Slack and Hipchat, which allows the sharing of updates on prototyping using the Prott app in an engineering team.

Goodpatch also announced that the Prott app has been adopted by global design consulting firm Ideo, Yahoo Japan, DeNA for their internal app development.

See also:

• Tokyo Office Tour: At new office, Goodpatch preparing official launch of prototyping tool

Upon the official launch, Goodpatch also unveiled pricing plans for Prott. The price is determined by the number of prototyping projects a user has developed using the platform; one project is free, three projects cost $14 yen a month (Starter plan), unlimited projects costs $25 yen a month (Pro plan), and $99 yen a month (Team plan).

According to Goodpatch founder and CEO Naofumi Tsuchiya, Prott has acquired about 7,000 users in about eight months since the launch of its beta version. Taiwan-based Pop, a competitor, has acquired about 300,000 users in two years since its launch in late 2012. Prott’s figure shows a good start because Goodpatch has not done any promotion.

In the global trends in this space, US-based popular prototyping tool Invision has fundraised about $35 million in total, as well as Axure, US-based wireframe tool for enterprise users, is generating about $200 million annual revenue, so there is huge potential in this market.

Tsuchiya explained the Prott app advantages:

Anyone can start using Prott without preliminary knowledge, which is obviously our strength. Users tell us they love Prott because they can start prototyping in a few seconds after using the app for the first time.

Tsuchiya outlined his growth strategy:

We can develop more services beyond the prototyping tool. But we are not interested in integrating Prott with other crowdsourced platforms because crowdsourcing may cause decreased wages for skilled designers. Nevertheless we may create an online community that matches idea owners with developers because the Prott app allows idea owners to present their ideas about an app regardless of whether they have any engineering skills or not. App developers can leverage outcomes from the platform to hire new people by presenting images of services they want to create.

Goodpatch sets UX/UI design as their core competence and aims to launch more services in this space. With loyal support from the startup and app developer community, the company is aiming for an IPO in the near future.

See the original story in Japanese.

Our readers may recall Tokyo-based web design firm Goodpatch raised funds from Digital Garage this past December. More recently the company announced a new prototyping tool in closed beta. It’s called Prott.

The tool is focused on helping developers create mobile apps based on rapid prototyping methods. We’ve already seen similar tools like Invision or Flinto, but there are very few players in this space in Japan.

Coinciding with this beta version, the company has unveiled a new design for its homepage, including a promo video of the prototyping tool (see below).

The company also plans to launch an iOS app for the tool this month. For their closed beta period, members of their Facebook beta testers group are preferentially invited.