Users aren’t adopting your product MVP. Now what?
You had an idea. You created a lean canvas. You worked on the pitch. You got in front of investors. You raised some money. You launched your product and you’re ready for the big payoff. You sacrificed a lot just to get to this point but the world has other plans because somebody told Johnny to sweep the leg: users simply aren’t adopting your product MVP. Now what?
Unfortunately, all the work we put in to release our MVPs is training for this moment. This is the place where true entrepreneurs are separated from professionals and technicians starting a business. This might be ‘the dip’: The Dip by Seth Godin or we may be deciding if we’re an entrepreneur or a technician: The E-Myth by Michael E. Gerber. Regardless of who or where we think we are, this is the forest that every entrepreneur, product owner, and startup navigates to their future success or eventual doom.
We’ve spent the last 10 years working with startups, interviewing Chicago business leaders, building my own products and experiencing first hand the tests and tribulations of this moment: Will my idea fail or be refined, liberated and celebrated by the masses. In that time, we have developed some guiding principles that I and the 8bit team have used to successfully go on to achieve post-MVP greatness.
Listen to your early adopters. Early adopters are the hunters of the digital forest. They are most satisfied when they discover products that align with our beliefs. Their bounty comes in the form of credit when sharing our product with their networks. We’ve found that MVPs don’t have to be completely polished to effectively solve a problem. In fact, most early adopters would prefer a product not be feature complete, because it proves that they found it first! This demographic can tell us very quickly just how clear we’re communicating our beliefs and can give us invaluable insights for what is and isn’t working with our products. If you don’t have the means to analyze their behavior through analytics or have yet to do qualitative research, putting some time and effort into a small research plan is the quickest and easiest way to get your product back on the right path for market fit.
Gather information from people that could care less about your emotional well-being. It’s not uncommon for entrepreneurs to ask colleagues, friends, and family for input. The problem is that we don’t surround ourselves with people who are critical customers. Overly tactful feedback is dangerous because our networks are full of people (biased or not) that give us the best personal advice, rather than business advice. Instead, we think about the places we could go to get feedback from people outside our usual networks. For instance, we’ve found it helpful to find customers of a big competitor and lay out your idea to them (second mover advantage, anyone?). The point is to start gathering information from people that could care less about your emotional well-being. They better represent what your product is in the real world.
Stop taking the journey on your own. “Going into the forest alone is a great idea,” said no one ever. Protecting your idea from possible competitors is one thing but we’ve found that the amount of time, passion, and resources it takes to successfully execute ANY idea is rarely quick, easy, or doable by any team. We’ve found this barrier to be the best NDA/non-compete we‘ve ever had. Instead of trailblazing the path by ourselves, we try giving others the chance to use their experience to help us navigate the path as we go. We’ve noticed that most successful products are surrounded by strategic relationships, boards, and partnerships who share a common goal of helping us navigate the trail.
Tell the world why they should follow you. We’re aiming to take users on a journey, so why should they follow us? You may still follow Apple because they ThinkDifferent and the type of people on that journey are, ya know, Einstein and Amelia Earhart. It’s just to say, that journey sounds pretty awesome without knowing (or caring) what product they’re going to launch. We ask ourselves, what do you know about that group that can help us decide what path to take them on? Or more simply, what are our users going to experience? Will they meet their friends along the way, because that’s what Facebook’s journey is all about and the newsfeed is simply the trail. Product teams are using more journey maps because effectively these maps help us focus less on the features and more on taking users on the right journey (platform) or focus on helping them along their path through tools and utilities (SAAS). How will our users remember the trip and what will they highlight to their friends? We’ve found this analogy to be a fantastic tool because it helps shape product messaging. It also helps explain why some brands rely on feedback to make products while others insist that customers don’t know what they want until we show them. The wild card is that some famous entrepreneurs are able to attract users and investors to their products with seemingly no effort or special tactics and that’d because they have a proven track record of creating great journeys.
Congrats again on getting to this point. Despite how difficult and complicated creating products can be, this is just the beginning of the true “path less traveled.” The launch of an MVP is really just us wandering into the forest. This is the place where our leadership and resourcefulness will truly be tested. I’ve lived it and the 8bit team lives it every day and although it is difficult, I can assure you those who are the most resourceful have the best chances of surviving and thriving. It’s as thrilling and challenging as it sounds and I hope these simple tips help you along your path.
John W Ostler (@seahostler) is Co-Founder and Principal of Experience at Eight Bit Studios (@eightbitstudios) is a global leader in mobile and website product strategy studio in Chicago helping companies and organizations navigate the digital forest. Their award-winning work has been featured in the USA Today, Brandweek, The Daily Beast, NewYork Times Tech blog, Mashable.com, and the homepage of Drupal.org. He is also Co-Host and Executive Producer of Bytes Over Bagels.
