Ask HN: What are some great examples of a Minimum Viable Product? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are some great examples of a Minimum Viable Product?

#51

Post by wushupork » Tue, Jul 19, 2011, 4:44 PM UTC

Another shameless plug: ShelfLuv.com The original version of ShelfLuv was just instant search for Amazon books - nothing else - wrapped in a pretty UI that was done at a hackathon. It would have stayed just that had people not started using it and validating the idea that there was something there and people valued a better UX for searching books.

Re: Ask HN: What are some great examples of a Minimum Viable Product?

#52

Post by theitgirl » Tue, Jul 19, 2011, 5:38 PM UTC

This is great. I have been trying to figure out what a MVP is. Is a landing page with a description of your product and a sign up form considered a MVP?

Re: Ask HN: What are some great examples of a Minimum Viable Product?

#53

Post by robtoo » Tue, Jul 19, 2011, 5:46 PM UTC

theitgirl wrote: post #52

This is great. I have been trying to figure out what a MVP is. Is a landing page with a description of your product and a sign up form considered a MVP?

If you are in the landing page business, then yes. Otherwise no.

Re: Ask HN: What are some great examples of a Minimum Viable Product?

#54

Post by diolpah » Tue, Jul 19, 2011, 5:50 PM UTC

naner wrote: post #10

CD Baby just started out with some links to purchase albums IIRC. Derek then manually filled orders and sent items out.

Similarly, we started out in my cofounder's grandmother's house and ran our original site on a $20 shared host running a horribly unstable cgi-bin with perl. My cofounder took calls and fulfilled orders himself.

Re: Ask HN: What are some great examples of a Minimum Viable Product?

#55

Post by ccarella » Tue, Jul 19, 2011, 6:00 PM UTC

I consider my service, Subjot as an MVP but we're just starting to move beyond that. Since branching out on my own, its the first product I've built that I'm moving beyond the MVP.

Why? 68% of all registered users visited Subjot last week. Our total number of users are still small (private beta) but our engagement is very high.

It's in private beta but you can use this code to check it out if you are interested - http://sjot.it/nXM96E

Re: Ask HN: What are some great examples of a Minimum Viable Product?

#56

Post by methodin » Tue, Jul 19, 2011, 6:17 PM UTC

adjwilli wrote: post #47

methodin wrote: post #6

I've always thought that Instagram was an MVP. I do not have an iPhone, however, so I'm not sure if the app itself follows that mentality or not.

It might have started off that way. I didn't download it until recently. But nowadays it has all sorts of social networking features I think would disqualify it from being an MVP.

An MVP doesn't have to remain an MVP, right? I would think the purpose of an MVP is to gain traction to be able to expand upon the core product.

Re: Ask HN: What are some great examples of a Minimum Viable Product?

#57

Post by Ade_Lack » Tue, Jul 19, 2011, 8:27 PM UTC

smashing wrote: post #50

So, did we do your homework for you?

:) Above and and beyond my friend. Thanks to everyone for all your help, feel free to keep adding to the discussion I'm checking out each and everyone.

Re: Ask HN: What are some great examples of a Minimum Viable Product?

#58

Post by adrianscott » Tue, Jul 19, 2011, 9:21 PM UTC

I think most great examples of MVP are pretty invisible because you are typically starting off testing it with small groups of users -- just enough to get feedback to move it to the next stage. Otherwise it isn't the M in MVP -- It's not the minimum.

We are big fans of using Dave McClure's Pirate Metrics model... building activation first, then retention, and then going for acquisition, etc.

The first version of CoderBuddy was very minimally-viable compared to where we're at today. It was enough to get something done and to use in workshops. Since then we've analyzed where the biggest bottlenecks are improving activation etc., along the lines of the Pirate Metrics model.

Hope this helps.

Re: Ask HN: What are some great examples of a Minimum Viable Product?

#59

Post by orky56 » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 12:21 AM UTC

My favorite examples are where the product satisfies its objective (fulfills the customer need) AND does it does it better than the competition (via user experience, number of features, visual design, speed, cheaper). Often people create an MVP that fulfills a customer need but is worse than the competition. Every metric will point toward the fact that the MVP failed since they are based on product market fit (PMF).

HackerNews is a great example.

Re: Ask HN: What are some great examples of a Minimum Viable Product?

#60

Post by thenomad » Wed, Jul 20, 2011, 1:07 AM UTC

theitgirl wrote: post #52

This is great. I have been trying to figure out what a MVP is. Is a landing page with a description of your product and a sign up form considered a MVP?

No, that would be more like a dry test. They serve similar purposes in some ways, very different in others. Tim Ferriss is very keen on dry testing - see 4 hour work week.