The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is out. The Minimum Awesome Product (MAP) is in.

Every entrepreneur faces the challenge of deciding when to launch their product.

You ask yourself “Is my product offering enough?” or “Is there a better way to do this?”

Although these are important questions, they often hold founders back from an important part of the startup journey; market validation.

Delaying market feedback can throw a wrench in your growth and hold your startup back from achieving important milestones.

It’s best to incorporate market feedback into your product as soon as you can.

“But what if my product isn’t close to completion yet?”

Enter the Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

Or as I like to call it, the Minimum Awesome Product (MAP)

Somewhat different from an MVP in that a MAP will incorporate a solution to a problem that already has some extra validation.

So how does it work?

You won’t start developing a Minimum Awesome Product until you identify the people you want to help as well as the problem they’re facing.

Conversely, an MVP is defined as “a product with enough features to attract early adopter customers and validate a product idea early in the development cycle.”

MAP creators won’t build until after they’ve validated the idea or solution with more extensive research.

How do you go about building a Minimum Awesome Product?

I’ll spare the intricate details but here are the basic steps to conduct before and during your MAP development.

1. Market research: In this stage, identify the problem you’re solving and ensure it’s one a number of people are facing
2. Outline your idea: Create a structure for what the tangible version of your product will look like. What are its features? What are its benefits? How will people use it?
3. Build and launch: Once your feature list is built out, it’s time to build and then launch your MAP. Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s AWESOME because you already know it’s solving a problem.
4. Gather feedback: Ask for reviews and feedback to determine how you can take your MAP to the next level. Work out the kinks and polish it over time to be the best product it can be.

After you’ve launched your MAP, you should gather additional feedback and incorporate that feedback into your product.

Ideally, your pre-launch market validation will reduce the amount of iterations you’ll have to make post-launch.

Any polishes you make at this stage will set you up for more aggressive marketing strategies.

Every week, I share tips on how to help build your startup. Some of those tips include marketing strategies that help you grow from zero.

If you’re interested, you can subscribe here.

What do you think of the Minimum Awesome Product (MAP)?

Comment below 👇🙂