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Signs You Aren’t Really Building a Minimum Viable Product

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Re: Signs You Aren’t Really Building a Minimum Viable Product

#11

Post by loceng »

gfodor wrote: post #4

My problem with the "MVP" concept is it assumes you can generally know what it is you need to learn. This is true sometimes, but often not. Often taking the extra leap of faith on something results in richer, more meaningful understanding than the surface-layer assumptions you have before you actually make the leap. Launching a landing page can only tell you so much compared to if you got a working prototype in front…

The way I validated my ideas, instead of a landing page, was simply asking the people who would be users and getting feedback on the features and function. This replaced the need of having a landing page. I then created a prototype, which I had hoped would be enough for an MVP, though you gain insights while developing that you couldn't see otherwise - and realized it wasn't enough for the user adoption and usability level required.

Re: Signs You Aren’t Really Building a Minimum Viable Product

#12

Post by loceng »

nubela wrote: post #5

You know what, I hate (its a strong word, i know) this whole lean startup movement. Yes, a lot of point make sense, iterate whats working, throw out whats not working. But theres a giant conundrum to it, especially for certain types of startups. Lets take the startup I am working on now as an example. I am working on a Bookmarking framework for real life. Or you can call it, delicious for worthy experiences in life.…

Lean startup and MVP movements only function if you have someone in control with a clear vision and understanding of what will / needs to be created, and who can defend what the MVP features need to be. If you don't understand the metrics and why they exist then you'll have no idea why your product didn't take off - and that seems too risky to spend your time, energy, money on - if you don't the strong understanding of what must be missing.

An MVP in this sense really is just a real product with a minimal set of features. :)

Re: Signs You Aren’t Really Building a Minimum Viable Product

#13

Post by viscanti »

polemic wrote: post #7

> A MVP [minimal viable product] is not a minimal product.... While I agree with the general sentiment of the post, the insistence that an MVP doesn't actually have do be something useful has something wiffy about it. Am I the only one who thinks that a landing page is not a viable product? A lot of the time people don't know what they want/need until they actually have something to use, so simply pitching an idea an…

It depends what idea you're testing. If you're looking to see if there's any interest at all in the idea, a landing page with adwords could test that. You can funnel traffic there and see if anyone clicks a "buy now" button. That can be enough to see if the idea warrants any additional work.

A landing page isn't the only way to do an MVP, and it's not always helpful in finding out more about your problem area. If it does help, then great, use it. If it doesn't add any additional information, don't waste your time.

Re: Signs You Aren’t Really Building a Minimum Viable Product

#14

Post by kevinpet »

Sign up landing pages as MVP? Never. Sign up pages to assess interest may be valuable, but they aren't MVP. MVP is "this is most stripped-down version of our vision that we think anyone would actually pay for". It's drawing a line in the sand. It's not expected to be profitable or grow quickly, or anything like that, but it's expected to be something that you can actually sell to someone. If you make the MVP, and no one buys, and you go through a couple cycles of "who's our target market", and there's still nobody buying, you need to kill it. Give up on that product, take anything you've managed to learn from your prospective customers, and build something else.

In other words: MVP isn't a catch-all for everything you could do to interact with your customers before you validated your vision. MVP means the "minimum" (stripped down, only the core features) "viable" (you must believe someone will buy it as-is) "product" (it must actually do something and provide value).

Re: Signs You Aren’t Really Building a Minimum Viable Product

#15

Post by lucisferre »

kevinpet wrote: post #14

Sign up landing pages as MVP? Never. Sign up pages to assess interest may be valuable, but they aren't MVP. MVP is "this is most stripped-down version of our vision that we think anyone would actually pay for". It's drawing a line in the sand. It's not expected to be profitable or grow quickly, or anything like that, but it's expected to be something that you can actually sell to someone. If you make the MVP, and no…

So then what was the Dropbox video MVP?

Re: Signs You Aren’t Really Building a Minimum Viable Product

#16

Post by _pius »

gfodor wrote: post #4

My problem with the "MVP" concept is it assumes you can generally know what it is you need to learn. This is true sometimes, but often not. Often taking the extra leap of faith on something results in richer, more meaningful understanding than the surface-layer assumptions you have before you actually make the leap. Launching a landing page can only tell you so much compared to if you got a working prototype in front…

My problem with the "MVP" concept is it assumes you can generally know what it is you need to learn.

More accurately, it forces you to have falsifiable hypotheses to test, which is pretty useful.

Re: Signs You Aren’t Really Building a Minimum Viable Product

#17

Post by kevinpet »

lucisferre wrote: post #15
kevinpet wrote: post #14

Sign up landing pages as MVP? Never. Sign up pages to assess interest may be valuable, but they aren't MVP. MVP is "this is most stripped-down version of our vision that we think anyone would actually pay for". It's drawing a line in the sand. It's not expected to be profitable or grow quickly, or anything like that, but it's expected to be something that you can actually sell to someone. If you make the MVP, and no…

So then what was the Dropbox video MVP?

I'm not sure I understand you. If you're talking about the creative craft "What is Dropbox?" video, that was definitely post-MVP. Dropbox launched publicly with the ability to pay for it in Sept 2008. The video that made them take off like a rocket was in Sept 2009.

You could argue that sept 2008 was already post-MVP and they had what they considered a tentative MVP in March 2008 when they launched the private beta. Remember, the whole lean startup philosophy is about testing and learning. If they knew in March 2008 that their product was actually good enough to sell, then they should have let it out earlier.

I don't actually know anyone at Dropbox and I don't know if they are lean startup fans or if they would characterize anything this way, but I think it's a good example of the best case scenario for how you can build a great product: initial beta followed closely by minimal MVP with real paying customers, then some tweaking to get all the kinks worked out (technical and marketing), then one of your marketing pushes finds the market and you take off like mad.

Re: Signs You Aren’t Really Building a Minimum Viable Product

#19

Post by lucisferre »

kevinpet wrote: post #17
lucisferre wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then what was the Dropbox video MVP?

I'm not sure I understand you. If you're talking about the creative craft "What is Dropbox?" video, that was definitely post-MVP. Dropbox launched publicly with the ability to pay for it in Sept 2008. The video that made them take off like a rocket was in Sept 2009. You could argue that sept 2008 was already post-MVP and they had what they considered a tentative MVP in March 2008 when they launched the private beta.…

I'm talking about this http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/19/dropbox-minimal-viable-prod...

Also that Eric specifically mentioned this in the book. I'm confused that this is surprising to you. I'm assuming you've read the Lean Startup?

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