Lines of viability
The concept of the MVP (minimum viable product) is one of those things that quickly went from being a product strategy into what now feels more like a mentality. The term is used in a lot of different ways, and the perception of what it means to build a MVP varies. What are you actually making viable?
The main reason behind the MVP is to make sure you make something people want. Instead of spending time and resources blindly building what you think is correct, the MVP is ment to rapidly test the hypothesis that your product is what the market wants. To do that you build in cycles while testing your product on users. More often than not, the speed of development is key for early-stage companies. You want to get your product to market as soon as possible. Because of that, you can never “have it all”. You will have to draw a line somewhere that demonstrates where you can get away with using less resources for now. It’s easy to draw the line where something requires a lot of work, but to figure out what to cut you need to consider what you need to know to validate your hypothesis. What do you really need to prove that this is sustainable? Some things might feel necessary for your market or strategy specifically. If you’re launching a product for designers it’s probably easier to attract customers if you don’t look bad, but remember that it’s not your designers skill you are unsure of (I hope), it’s if the product can make the business model work.
Test what matters to your business
Normally you want to test the things that is key for you to succeed. This comes down to market-specific questions. Does our product solve the problem? Is there a will to pay for this? How much? It is easy to iterate out a good product, but it’s hard to get the market to adopt it. Don’t wait for high fidelity to get information—get it now. You want to create an environment where user feedback fuels the product development as fast as possible, so you can find the right path to go forward. You should start planning (and doing) this before you start building anything. Thinking you can create a solution without really understanding the problem is naive.
This mentality can also work on other parts of your business, not just your product. Why not test your marketing tactics to see if you can reach customers at a cost that might be sustainable? Before I finalize budgets I normally run low-scale tests of different marketing channels to get an idea of how easy it is to attract customers. The CAC is a crucial part of getting a business sustainable and I want to know what to expect. You can do the same with a anything crucial to your project.
Whatever you decide is part of your “MVP run”, but try not to postpone the real questions. Sooner or later you will realize that all that other stuff is depending on those answers to be right. If they’re not, you want to know as soon as possible.
