“Entrepreneurship in a lean startup is really a series of MVP’s”
“We kept to minimum feature spec. I think that is always very important. It is hard to determine what to do until you launch.”
Do minimum viable products seem abstract? Here’s 10 examples:
- “If Apple can launch a smartphone without Find or Cut-and-Paste, what can you cut out of your product requirements?” – Sramana Mitra
- USV-backed foursquare uses Google Docs to collect customer feedback. No code, no maintenance.
- Fliggo sells it before they build it.
- Grockit puts up a notify-me-when-you-release form on steroids.
- Auto e-commerce site uses manualation and flintstoning for their backend.
- Semiconductor company uses 5 people and FPGAs to build a $100M semiconductor product line.
- Consumer company uses fake screenshots to sell their product.
- Allicator uses Facebook ads: “Ditch Digger? Feeling spread thin? Click here to complete a survey and tell us about it.”
- ManyWheels uses Microsoft Visio to build clickable web demos for prospective customers.
- Cloudfire uses a classic customer development problem presentation.
Work in small batches. A minimum viable product is simply the smallest batch that will teach you something. What can you release in one day?
“The first version of Gmail was literally written in a day.”
Please add your favorite MVPs in the comments. Don’t be lazy.
Even more MVPs
- RightNow uses phone calls to iterate on their MVP.
- The team that started Isilon spent a year meeting high level execs and researchers and engineers around the world to understand the broad requirements of the mobile industry.
# rishi · Oct 27, 2009
MVP (kinda) : Presale Tickets for a conference. If you get enough people to buy move forward with the conference.
# Nik · Oct 28, 2009
I dont know if Greg/Right Now qualifies as MVP but definitely in the customer development category.
http://www.sramanamitra.com/2008/08/02/the-montana-mogul-rightnow-ceo-greg-gianforte-part-3/
The relevant part:
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Now here is a good lesson in bootstrapping. I did all of this before I had a product. When I asked if they would buy it, they said no. Better to find that out early on! I then asked companies why they said no, wrote their answers down, and moved on to the next phone call. This was an iterative process that took about 400 phone calls to complete, but when I was done I was able to hone in on an initial product. In just one month, which is how long it took me to make those 400 phone calls, I knew exactly what customers would buy. That is when I went and built the initial product which took just 45 days because I did not have to build a huge application, just the pieces that I knew customers wanted.
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FYI- I wrote a customer development post about using AdWords to determine Market type:
http://www.nikhileshrao.com/post/664/using-adwords-to-determine-market-type-in-a-customer-development-process/
# Ryan Nile · Oct 28, 2009
Simon Cowell is the king of MVP and Customer Development with American Idol, Britains Got Talent, X Factor etc
Acts = MVP’s every week
CD = the audience chooses who they will buy into
# Napoleon Bonaparte · Oct 28, 2009
We engage and then we see.
# Anonymous · Oct 30, 2009
From George S. Patton… “A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution applied ten minutes later.”
# Mark Essel · Nov 12, 2009
The minimum viable product were a couple of images on these two blog posts:
1) http://www.victusspiritus.com/2009/06/21/monetization-for-web2010/
2) http://www.victusspiritus.com/2009/06/23/notional-framework-for-monetization-web2010/
Now the concept is “alive” on my blog (right hand side) thanks to bumping into someone more capable than myself.
There are additional evolving services, check them out at http://victus1.victusmedia.com
# Mohan Arun L · Nov 13, 2009
Point #2 – for collecting customer feedback you could use plug n play tools like Kampyle (used by Mozilla), uservoice, and Get Satisfaction!. These are also no-or-low maintenance just like Google Docs.
FYI – I have content about related topic –
‘Crowdsourcing as a way to develop and refine product ideas – questions to ponder’ right here
http://interestsblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/my-notes-questions-that-crowdsourcing.html
# Joris Witteman · Nov 23, 2009
An MVP is not only a quick way to bootstrap and save money and time, it also forces you to define the essence of your product. What does it do at its very core? The answer to this question is vital to a successful product, its design and its development. Anything else is just noise.
# Dan Hodgins · Dec 23, 2009
Wish I knew about the MVP in September when I quit my job to start my startup. Could have saved months in development time, and arrived and product/market fit or non-viable product in weeks instead of 4 months!
MVP applies to everything I do now.
I’d like to share two other examples of MVP with readers:
1. Tim Ferris: testing book titles using Google ads driving traffic to landing pages.
2. Selling Blue Elephants: for these fellows, an MVP is a set of elements including a headline, photo, and randomized benefit list shown to thousands of people in hundreds of combinations. In this case MVP combines with Multivariate testing to provide powerful insights about people’s nuanced preferences. In their framework, there is one magical set of elements that people like and will buy.
I am interested in more examples of people’s creative interpretations of MVP!