Silly definitions of startup things

You know what bores me? People trying to define things.

Which is precisely what I’ll be doing here.

So bear with me. You’ve been warned.

MVP

So, have you ever heard about MVPs? It means ‘Minimum Viable Product’, according to Lean Startup’s Eric Ries.

The tricky thing is that a MVP is not a product in the traditional sense. I know, right? But it’s not! Because its purpose is not the same as a regular product. Some products exist so people can share stuff, buy stuff, read stuff or something like that. So if people share/buy/read more, then the product is more successful. Pretty straight forward.

The thing is that the output of a MVP is knowledge. So if you manage to learn something by running the MVP, then mission accomplished! Usually you are just trying to validate a product idea.

It’s a minor detail, but that matters. Because a true MVP is not about performance. It’s about learning something.

So please, don’t ever complain that a MVP is not performing that well. Don't say that it's not as polished, bug-free as possible. Don't tell me that it's not generating as much value as possible. Don't tell me that it could be much better.

Because then you'd looking at it as if it were a regular product. Disregard the 'P' in MVP. It's not. Sometimes it's just an experiment. It should be MVE. Take note, Eric Ries.

If you truly ran an MVP, you were seeking knowledge. Shortcuts are allowed in that scenario. Don’t you complain about then, otherwise you might risk just being silly.

Oh, there’s one exception. If you think a MVP is this, you are both excused and awesome. Kudos.

Startup

Oh, and startup is another thing that’s often misdefined (is that a word btw? If it’s not, it should be).

Take a look at Dave Mcclure’s awesome definition:

A ‘startup’ is a company that is confused about —

1) What its product is.

2) Who its customers are.

3) How to make money.

As soon as it figures out all 3 things, it ceases being a startup and becomes a real business.

Except most times, that doesn’t happen.

So you see a lot of people using the startup term left and right. You see people saying that companies like Facebook or Twitter are startups. In Brazil, people tend to call Movile and VivaReal (the awesome company where I currently work) startups as well.

But they are not startups. They have been startups sometime in the past for sure, before they found traction. Now they are just awesome companies enjoying an even more awesome growth phase — not startups.

It’s a contradicting thing: a startup is something that’s desperately trying not to be a startup anymore.

Except most times, that doesn’t happen.