A Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Minimum Viable Product — Defining the Problem (Part I)
According to Eric Ries, champion of the lean startup movement, a minimum viable product (MVP) is “a product which has just enough features to gather validated learning about the product and its continued development.” In other words, it’s just enough product for users to gain value from.
For my capstone project at General Assembly’s Product Management course, my team developed a MVP for Beige Notes, a platform to send and receive closure and feedback for past dates. In two weeks, we defined our product, tested our ideas, iterated and released our MVP by pairing our course materials with the sprint methodology described in Jake Knapp’s Sprint. Here, I will explain our process and lessons learned in three articles covering:
- Defining a problem people care about
- Creating and validating the solution
- Managing a sprint
I will share links to resources we used at the end of each article.
Part One: Defining a Problem People Care About
Let’s get started. Our focus here is on ideation. We’ll discuss how to come up with an idea by identifying our problem to target, validating that our problem actually affects other people and developing target user profiles.
Step One: Coming Up With the Damn Idea
Crafting an idea can be difficult especially when you are searching for one. For the inspiration for Beige Notes, I looked internally and followed the old adage “you don’t find love, it finds you.” Solving problems that you actually care about equips you with two superpowers for building great products: motivation and empathy. Not only will you be more willing to burn the midnight oil on these problems, but you will also have a better understanding of your user’s pain points if you share their problems (caution: this does not mean that you are the target user; more on this to come.)
My inspiration for Beige Notes came from my dating experiences. I’ve tried many of the dating apps out there and have had my share of first dates. There were two themes that repeatedly haunted me.
- The first, I found myself getting “ghosted” and also taking the easy way out of “ghosting” others. To clarify, “ghosting” isn’t a reference to the Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze movie. Instead, it refers to “ending a romantic relationship by cutting off all contact and ignoring the former partner’s attempts to reach out”. Not having closure left me feeling very unsettled (it’s worse than leaving your i’s un-dotted.)
- The second, I had my string of funny first date stories which my friends milked for entertainment. Although I loved being able to joke about the experiences, I wondered if my dates shared the same perspective about our encounters.
From these personal experiences, I identified the problem: I want clarity on my past dates.
Step Two: Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself — Validate the Problem
Now that I’ve identified a problem, I need to do a pulse check. Does anyone else have this problem and do they give a damn about it? To do this, get out there and talk to people. Word of caution: beware of allowing your personal interest in your problem to cloud your judgement of the feedback you receive. Remember to keep an open mind and do not lead. While you may be a user of your product, you are not the target user.
To validate my problem, I utilized surveys and interviews to collect information on the following points:
- Do other people share my problem?
- Who are they?
- How often does this problem arise?
- Can they currently solve this problem? How?
- Why? (When in doubt, ask why. This is a powerful question and will help you understand the motives of your user.)
On Surveying
Surveys are a great tool to use to gather a large number of responses quickly and they can be a great way to identify who to target for an interview.
Some Tips:
1. Have a defined purpose for the survey and craft questions around this. Having specific goals and understanding of what data needs to be collected in order to meet these goals are crucial to validating your problem.
2. Do not rely on qualitative feedback from the survey as a primary means.
It is difficult to understand the “why” through a survey. Avoid using too many open ended questions and be wary of the responses your receive. Utilize interviews to gain more insight.
3. Begin with the most important questions first and ask demographic questions at the end.
When crafting the survey, think about the experience of the respondent. You need to keep them engaged.
4. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)
A good survey should be like a great conversation. Ask clear questions. Do not use fancy jargon.
5. Have a good sample size.
Your survey will inherently have sampling bias. You can counter this with a relatively large sample size.
6. Do not lead.
Be aware of your tone and avoid using qualifying words. Although you’ll have the urge to “game” your survey to ensure you successfully validate the problem, fight it! It is better to find out sooner than later if you need to pivot your idea.
7. Position your survey where your users are.
For Beige Notes, I targeted online daters because I assumed that they were more likely to experience ghosting. To gather survey respondents, I utilized Reddit dating blogs and dating apps such as Tinder and OKCupid where it was relatively easy for me to connect directly with users.
8. Ask for contact information to follow up.
You can use this information to 1) gauge the interest level of respondents to the target problem 2) conduct follow up interviews and 3) gather contacts for future beta testing of your product.
On Interviewing
Utilize responses you receive from your surveys as guideposts for crafting your interview questions and as a source for interview subjects.
Tips:
- Always have a script and do a test run to ensure your questions flow naturally.
I typically print out a one page list of my questions and use this as a place to quickly jot down notes during the interview. It’s a great way to keep track of questions to circle back to without interrupting your interviewee while they are speaking. - Memorize your script but also allow room for flexibility.
If your interviewee brings up an interesting point, explore it with a followup “why question.” Also keep in mind that your script is a working copy that should be changed if needed. - Record your interviews but ask for permission first.
Every person I interviewed allowed me to record them, especially when I explained that it would help speed up the note taking process. - Don’t be shy, hit the streets and go where your target audience is.
I interviewed people waiting in line for Halal food, sitting in coffee shops and drinking at the bar. Although approximately 40% of the people I approached quickly dashed away from me, I was surprised by how willing the remaining 60% were to share their personal dating stories with me. I even ended up grabbing some friendly drinks with a few interviewees to continue discussing their dating stories. - Smile and be friendly.
You will feel more comfortable and so will your interviewee. - Persevere through the rejection and offer incentives if needed
Try out different opening lines and tactics to break the ice. A Philz gift card can be a game changer in capturing people to interview. - Open ended questions are better than yes/no questions.
You will capture more information through open ended questions. If binary questions are unavoidable, follow up with “why?” - STFU and listen. Do not lead
This is the most important takeaway. In order to validate the problem, we actually need to do it. Try to have as little influence as possible on your interviewee’s response. - Ask for contact information to follow up.
If a person is willing to provide you with their contact information, this is a great sign that they care about what you are working on. 80% of my interviews provided me with their contact information for follow up. - Have fun with it.
Interviewing can be daunting, however it is worth the effort because you can gain rich insight from your target users.
For Beige Notes, I interviewed a sample of Millennials of different genders, relationship statuses and sexual orientations. The following is a summary of my key findings:
- 100% of people were familiar with ghosting and the majority of them have had the direct experience of getting ghosted and also ghosting.
- More than 60% would prefer clarity from their dates than ghosting.
- 75% would provide clarity to someone they have dated if requested.
Section Three: Bring Your Problem to Life
Now that we’ve validated that ghosting is a problem and that people want to receive clarity on their past dates, let’s bring our target user(s) to life by creating personas.
Personas are important because they give us empathy, summarize our research and make the product creation process less subjective. They help guide our decisions on product features, interactions and visual design of our product. Personas are the characters for the story which we will craft our product around.
What Should a Persona Include:
- Name + Photo — These elements may seem superfluous but they’re key to bringing your persona to life.
- Characteristics
- Motivations
- Goals/ Desired Outcomes
- Demographics
- Background
And as always, validate that your personas make sense. Some ideas include role playing with your team, confirming that they are based on your research and asking yourself, “Do I know people like this in real life?”
At this point, we’re ready to start our sprint. If you have not yet validated your problem, do not proceed. Rethink your strategy and review your notes from your interviews and surveys. Be wary of falling into the trap of seeing what you want to see and meddling with your data. Be honest and real with yourself. It may be time to pivot your idea and your research can be a source of inspiration.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, drop me a line below or directly at beigenotes@gmail.com.
N E X T → Creating & Validating the Solution
Resources:
Articles on Interviewing:
Beginner’s Guide to Interviewing
User Interview Techniques
Best Practices for Interviewing
More Advice on Interviews
Articles on Surveying
Surveymonkey Guidelines
More Tips from Surveymonkey
Best Practices
Good Survey Questions
Types of Questions
Tools to Create Surveys:
Typeform
Google Forms
Surveymonkey
Sample Size Calculator
Amazon Turk
Articles on Personas
Hubspot on Creating Personas
Smashing Magazine: Personas
Free Tools to Create Personas:
Make My Persona
Xtensio
