How to build your MVP in Days
Dear Founders,
A MVP is an experiment you build in a few days to see if it provides any value to the person with the problem.
We sucked at building MVPs. Now we’re a little better. Here’s 3 tips on how to quickly build your MVP.
1. MVP = Experiment
The first tip is the concept that a MVP is not really a product, it’s more of an experiment to see if you can provide any value to the person with the problem.
If you want to solve traffic congestion, your MVP should test if people save time on their daily commutes.
If you want to solve slow browser performance, your MVP should test if people can open new tabs faster than before.
If your MVP solves the problem, congrats, your MVP works. If your MVP doesn’t solve the problem, congrats, you saved a ton of time and effort.
Again, the goal of your MVP is to see if it can provide any value to the person with the problem. The best way to see if it provides value is to give it to real users and get their feedback. Surveying random, unpaid users about your product doesn’t make the cut.
2. Quick and Dirty (no building in stealth mode)
A great MVP takes less than 4 weeks to build. A master MVP takes days.
Okay, this may not always be true but it’s probably true 96% of the time. As quickly as possible you need to hack your MVP together and give it to real users.
This means a few things:
1. Your MVP will be ugly, and that’s okay
2. Your MVP won’t completely solve the problem, and that’s okay
3. Your MVP won’t have any features, and that’s okay
You may be asking, if my MVP is ugly, doesn’t solve the problem, and doesn’t have any fancy features that people expect, why would they pay for it? And that’s okay.
Again, the goal of your MVP is to see if it can provide any value to the person with the problem. At this stage, how do you even know the problem is real, versus just inside your own head?
The way to find out is to give your MVP to real users and get their feedback. Ask them does this help you any? Does this help you eat more mindfully? Does this help make finding a caregiver for your parent easier? Does this make spontaneous meetings easier?
The process of building your MVP, seeing users use it, and getting their feedback will teach you a lot. Eventually, you want to be a painkiller solution, not just a nice to have. In other words, people feel real pain without their painkillers versus their multi vitamins. For now though, focus on any pain relief at all.
3. What’s the easiest and quickest way I can test my life or death assumption?
I learnt this method from Justin Kan and Jumpcut HQ to figure out how to build your MVP. It’s 3 easy steps.
- What’s my life or death assumption?
2. What’s the easiest and quickest way I can test my life or death assumption?
3. Continue till you can’t make it any easier to build. This is your MVP.
For example, Zappos’ life of death assumption is that people want to buy shoes online. It’s the entire idea that their business is based upon, and if their assumption is wrong, then Zappos would die.
Then Zappos asks what’s the easiest and quickest way we can test if people want to buy shoes online.
Idea 1: Buy the most popular 50 shoes and create a website and see if people will buy.
How can we make this easier to build?
Idea 2: Buy the most popular 50 shoes and post on Facebook’s Marketplace to see if people will buy.
How can we make this easier to build?
Idea 3: Go to DSW, and take pictures of the most popular 50 shoes and post to Facebook’s Marketplace to see if people will buy.
This is a pretty good MVP. It only takes a day’s work and is totally free. In reality, this was pretty close to what Zappos real MVP was.
Is Zappos’ MVP ugly, doesn’t completely solve the problem, and doesn’t have all the features customers expect like a website, payments, tracking, money back guarantee? Yes.
But it also doesn’t cost them a penny, can be done in one day, and most importantly proves if customers even want to buy shoes online.
Final thoughts
We were really shitty at building MVPs, and wasted lots of time and effort. Hopefully, this read makes it clearer that an MVP is really an experiment, should be quick and dirty, and takes days to weeks to build.
No more building out a brillant idea in stealth mode for months. More hacking things together and giving it to customers. If you would like help building out your MVP, check us out at Berlocks. Happy Hacking.
P.S. Here’s a few more MVPs.
