Minimum viable product (MVP), simply | #14
Minimum viable product (MVP), simply | #14
Let’s set some expectations and hopefully correct some understanding. An MVP is not the goal, it’s just the start.
👋 Hey, this is one of the more serious posts where every Tuesday and Friday you get something about product management, tech, or sustainability, and how they fit together. If that sounds interesting, sign up😊. This one is about MVPs here’s a 1 pager I made as an accompaniment that you might find useful for reference🧐
The term ‘MVP’ causes a lot of confusion. If you think you know what it means, read on and comment afterward if you were right. Some people seem to think that a ‘minimal product’ is the goal. Some think that their whole target audience should want it. Or most dangerously, some think that if your whole target audience doesn't want it, then it’s bad. These are all wrong. Realistically, only a subset of your audience is going to get excited about an MVP. This is how it should be.
When you understand the problem you want to solve, and you decide what the most valuable thing to solve is, and you build a product that solves it, and only it, you have an MVP. It is incomplete, it doesn’t do everything you want it to do, but it’s the place to start.
The idea is to reduce the amount of time you waste on development and to get what you’re building in the hands of the people you’re building it for as fast as possible. The people who get excited about it are the ‘early visionaries’. These are the people that get it, they see the long term vision, and they get onboard.
An MVP is the antithesis of what most sales, marketing, and ‘stakeholders’ want. Usually, they ask for more features based on the last user they spoke to. But this results in a long list of features that, if implemented, might get one user to buy-in per item. If this starts happening, pump the breaks fast.
Why build an mvp?
In the short term, many of your ‘stakeholders’ will not be thrilled. The MVP will most likely not speak to them, it will either seem incomplete or not what they envisioned, and they might be sad. This is fine. An MVP is not complete and is probably not what they envisioned. An MVP is an incomplete, minimal product that lets you iterate based on real user feedback sooner. In the long run, this is better.
Once you get to an mvp state you can get in front of the people you care about caring about it. You can listen to their feedback, observe them using your product, and focus on the next thing that stands to bring the most value. With each release you should get more people excited about it, sell your next value-add and sell it far and wide. Plus you should be able to do it quickly because you can focus on one thing at a time.
In the same amount of time if you had built something that you thought users wanted, and built all of the features they asked for, you might not be finished, and what you have built will almost certainly have features that most of your users don’t care about. Plus you’ll have one chance, one big launch to try and get a lot of people to care.
How to define an mvp
Typically when defining a new product you get a long list of features that a long list of people have asked for. In other words you get a long list of features that, if added, likely gets you one additional user per item on the list. That’s ten items, that each take some amount of time to build, for ten users.
What you should do, if you want to go the mvp route, is write a single paragraph that you can sell to all ten people on that list that describes how the one item you’re going to build solves their most pressing problem.
Instead of asking your users what features they would like to see, or if you already have a plan, asking them about the features you have, ask ‘What is the smallest or least complicated problem that we can solve that you’ll pay us for?’ If you get an answer, you build that thing, and people pay for it, you’ve found your business model.
How to sell an mvp
Most people think that the mvp is the complete product. Even people who are building the mvp sometimes think this. It’s not. Most users won’t want a product that is a minimal version of what they really want. They’ll see it and laugh. So why bother?
Because you are creating the first version of a product that they will want. You’re selling the first version to the ‘early visionaries’. A special breed of user who take a risk on your product, who can see its potential to solve their problems, and have the budget to buy it. Most users are not these users.
These early visionaries need to fall in love with the idea of what your product will be, or could be. It’s the vision that will keep them interested when you make mistakes. You’ll always make mistakes, there will always be bugs or bad performance, but the early visionaries will understand and see what you’re building for what it will be. So sell it to them, get them onboard, and for goodness sake, listen to them.
To sell to those people you will need:
The MVP spec’d having validated it with people who could be early visionaries
A one-pager of the vision and roadmap that stretches at least 18 months out
The early visionaries to understand the vision is subject to change. Their change.
Once you have this you’ll hopefully start to see people buy-in. Then you can start getting meaningful feedback. Typically the best way to do this is to conduct a beta run, or put a prototype in front of them and sit down with them one-to-one. From there, you’re away. Even if people hate it, or have a bad experience, you’ve got it in front of them, they’re playing with it, you’re getting the feedback you need to get to mvp+1.
Conclusion
An mvp is a minimal version of the product you want to build that solves the most important issue well enough to get ‘early visionaries’ on board and talking. Once you have that, you can work out what comes next, you can put together a business model, and you can start completing your product. Here, I made a 1 pager to accompany this post for reference.
Here’s a fun little case study from 2009 of someone using a similar method and identifying who the early visionaries are by asking prospects to sign a non-binding letter of intent to buy.
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