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New Website Builds Minimum Viable Products for Startups

ibuildmvps.com

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Re: New Website Builds Minimum Viable Products for Startups

#21

Post by rcavezza »

Jun8 wrote: post #10
rcavezza wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was relevant because I built the site in less than 90 minutes. I could be wrong, ideas for an edit?

90 minutes? What tool(s) did you use? Looks good.

I tried to build this website in the form of a minimum viable product the same as I would try to help others implement their idea. Found a free online template, built a web 2.0 button, tweaked the hell out of the template, and added a link to a Google Form. This is a true "minimum viable product" that I would like to create for others.

Re: New Website Builds Minimum Viable Products for Startups

#22

Post by dpritchett »

rmc wrote: post #20
troels wrote: post #19

Sorry in advance for being harsh, but ... You state that you can build a functional product in 2-3 hours? I call bullshit. I mean - I know programmers are notoriously optimistic, but that's just getting ridiculous. Unless you mean that you can throw together a mock-up, but that's not an MVP in my book.

A mockup can be a MVP. A MVP is just there to attract potential customers and make them 'sign up' (e.g. an 'I'm interested' email)

I like it. I'm guessing you're going to crank out quick Rails skeleton sites to Heroku? This is a good service and i see nothing wrong with people using your sketched out web apps to begin the customer validation process.

If Tim Ferriss can test an idea with a non-functional landing page and a few hundred dollars in adwords, surely your service is at least as viable.

Re: New Website Builds Minimum Viable Products for Startups

#23

Post by dpritchett »

I recommend you focus your copy on the type of people you'd expect to buy your service and not the programmers here at HN that are offended by the boldness of your claims.

You're contracting a high hourly rate to non-technical would-be founders on the understanding that they can get to the validation stage after a few hours of your time without having to line up a co-founder/CTO. This is gold!

Hopefully patio11 will review you - I think this sort of marketing is his specialty.

I'd also recommend you downplay your fresh-out-of-college status to avoid scaring off potential customers. Being a bright young 20-something is fine, but the "MY COLLEGE CAREER" link has a "just fell off the turnip truck" feel to it.

Re: New Website Builds Minimum Viable Products for Startups

#24

Post by rcavezza »

Thanks for the comments everyone:

Here are some replies...

1.) This website took 90 minutes to create from idea to publishing.

2.) Eric, Steve, Brant, and Peter are in no way affiliated with this except they are awesome and helped inspire it.

3.) An MVP can mean many things to many people. I think you should do the least amount of work in order to validate/invalidate the most assumptions. "Get out of the building", show people sketches, create site mockups with buttons that don't work and calculate the number of people who pressed them,etc. Here's an article from Venture Hacks.

http://venturehacks.com/articles/minimum-viable-product-exam...

4.) Interesting thought about NDAs. I think I would take the same route as VCs. Don't sign them because they may inadvertently affect other projects you're working on. I probably won't be able to offer assurance except not doing it - also like VCs.

5.) What do I provide. Depends on the project, I think smaller is better to validate assumptions with the least effort. This way, you don't waste time building something people don't want.

Re: New Website Builds Minimum Viable Products for Startups

#25

Post by dpritchett »

grg wrote: post #14

This is a great idea, and I'm likely to use it in the near future. One potential barrier to entry for users of this site: What's stopping ibuildmvps.com from building an MVP for someone, and then (if the idea works well) taking that idea and developing it to the next level without them? I'm not trying to say or imply that this is the intention of ibuildmvps.com. But (in America at least), you can't copyright an idea.…

This sounds exactly like the Facebook origin stories, both the ConnectU one and the "Paul Ceglia owns 84%" one.

Re: New Website Builds Minimum Viable Products for Startups

#26

Post by dpritchett »

Point of protocol here - submitting your own startup idea for critique on HN is a respected tradition but the slightly misleading headline reads like a 3rd party submission.

Most of the ones I see are more like "Show HN: Rate my new MVP building service".

Re: New Website Builds Minimum Viable Products for Startups

#27

Post by rcavezza »

dpritchett wrote: post #26

Point of protocol here - submitting your own startup idea for critique on HN is a respected tradition but the slightly misleading headline reads like a 3rd party submission. Most of the ones I see are more like " Show HN: Rate my new MVP building service ".

Apologies. The original headline said something to the tune of "I built this website in less than 2 hours" and I made this change. I don't think I'm allowed to change it again. Maybe an admin can make this change.

Re: New Website Builds Minimum Viable Products for Startups

#28

Post by dpritchett »

bconway wrote: post #17

I clicked on the link hoping there was some interesting technology involved, but it appears to be just someone offering contract work. Best of luck to him, but I'm not sure it's a very novel idea (I do it frequently, I imagine you do, too).

The technology isn't noteworthy but the marketing effort is. Surely there are tons of would-be non-technical-cofounders on Twitter drinking the Lean Startup / MVP koolaid who would jump at the chance to get their idea online overnight.

Maybe they could get it done by calling your or going on elance, but the copy and presentation of this site gets them closer to yes by speaking in today's startup lingo.

Re: New Website Builds Minimum Viable Products for Startups

#29

Post by Tichy »

Frankly, this seems like complete bullshit to me. It is simply the contact form for a normal, run off the mill PHP developer. Nothing against PHP developers having web sites, but it is not HN stuff.

Also, I strongly dislike that the site evokes the impression of being associated with Eric Ries, Steve Blank and Brant & Patrick - I am guessing that is not really the case.

Re: New Website Builds Minimum Viable Products for Startups

#30

Post by dpritchett »

danshapiro wrote: post #7

I love this idea. But I'm not seeing the thing on your site that makes me believe you can do this (e.g. the big PORTFOLIO button). How do I get that confidence?

If you can really crank these out this quickly you should be able to get 5 things in your portfolio within a week. If there's a startup scene where you live you could make some friends by offering them your services at a heavily discounted rate.

Putting up a nice portfolio will allow you to get customers online. Getting local customers only requires a good pitch.

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