Building a Minimum Viable Product MVP Building a Minimum Viable Product

Types of Startups Lifestyle startup Small business startup Provide a great quality of life to its owners. Small business startup Independently owned and operated company that is limited in size Scalable startup ( high growth ) Repeatable and scalable business model Buyable startup Achieves a return for investors by a buyout by a larger company Social entrepreneurship startup Applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being Innovative division in a large corporation

90% of startups Fail Focus on Customers and Markets on day 1! More startups fail from a lack of customers than from a failure of product development. Focus on Customers and Markets on day 1!

Know your Market Startups are in three types of markets Existing market. You have a product faster & better Re segmented market. You are a niche product You offer a low cost substitute New market No existing demand for your new product but there could be.

Develop your Customer

Design Thinking

What is An MVP? The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. The Lean Startup - Eric Ries

Why Do YOU NEED AN MVP? Avoid building products that nobody wants Maximize the learning per dollar spent Get the facts before it’s too late Visionary customers can “fill in the gaps” on missing features, if the product solves a real problem Allows us to achieve a big vision in small increments without going in circles Get to continuously change the product as you learn from the market

build-measure-learn

MVP strategies Explainer Video A Landing Page Manual-first (aka Wizard of Oz) MVP Concierge MVP (highly customized) Piecemeal MVP Crowd Funded MVP Single Featured MVP

Explainer Video The technical challenge of getting Dropbox off the ground was huge. Dropbox faced a few problems: Creating a new market File synchronization was a problem that most people didn’t know they had.  High cost to execute the application. File synchronization between multiple platforms required an army of engineers.  Needed feedback from customers if we can provide a superior customer experience, will people give our product a try? Dropbox, created a simple video that demonstrated how file synchronization worked. “It drove hundreds of thousands of people to the website. Our beta waiting list went from 5,000 people to 75,000 people literally overnight. It totally blew us away.” –Drew Houston https://youtu.be/7QmCUDHpNzE

A Landing Page Buffer is an app that allows you to queue social media posts Founder Joel Gascoigne faced a major question before building Would anyone want to use it? He create a very simple landing page If people were interested they clicked the Plans and Pricing and were taken to a page asking them to leave their email address. He later built the functionality and shortly after Buffer had 500 users and started generating revenue from the paying ones.

Wizard of Oz MVP Zappos is an online clothing store, but initially focused on shoes. Founder Nick Swinmurm had a problem He wanted a online store but couldn’t afford inventory. He visited stores and took pictures of the shoes. Only after he received an order would he return to the store to purchase the shoes. This allowed the founder to validate the assumption with little investment.

Concierge MVP Food on the table is a company that provides weekly recipes and grocery lists based on sales at your store Founder Manuel Rosso had a few problems The feature requirements were overwhelming to reach a product market fit. Before building anything he interviewed shoppers until he found one interested in their service Manuel would visit her every week with a shopping list and selected recipes chosen by her preferences, and promotions in the local store for a $9.95 fee. He kept adding customers and started developing the product only when he couldn’t handle the demand.

Piecemeal MVP Groupon (initially the point) is a deal-of-the-day recommendation service for consumers. The founders decided that rather than investing the time and money building their own infrastructure, they could combine existing platforms and services and the foundation. They used bits and pieces of various sources for their MVP WordPress website Apple Mail for mailing. AppleScript generated PDFs manually as orders were received

Crowd Funded MVP Pebble started as an idea - a customizable watch that would sync with smart phones. Pebble faced the problem Would anyone want to buy the product and how would they advertise it. Pebble used a crowdfunding platform KickStarter and published the details of their product. Kickstarter funders are rewarded with the promise of your product once you hit your minimum funding goal. They raised $10M for the product

Single Featured MVP Foursquare is mobile application that allows your friends know where you are and for you to figure out where they are. The company began with a simple idea of letting users check-in to the social network with their location. This helped the company focus resources on a specific feature and improve the experience for the customer