How to start a successful MVP (Part I)?
How do we define the famous MVP (Minimum Valuable Product) that everyone talks about but few people really know what it is? And above all, how do you create one that works? Is there a secret recipe for successful MVPs and failed MVPs ?
Here are a few tips to find out if your MVP is a success:
- Customers (non-friends) are buying your product!
- Customers are asking for more!
- Your product arouses non-rational reactions (love product effect)
- Customers want it now
- Customers talk about it around them
- Customers adopt it right away
If none of these reactions occur, it’s time to review your MVP until you reach these types of reactions.
So how do you build this famous MVP?
Well, it’s not that simple, because it’s not enough to “listen” to the customer and build what he wants. Because in this case, there will be as many different MVPs as there are different customers. Each customer will want to solve his own case.
Thus, your main task is not to “listen” to customers but to understand what their real needs are! No one will tell you this clearly and explicitly. No one has asked for a multitouch tablet phone with fullscreen movie player applications.
Another great difficulty, if you have ever understood the real needs of your customers, is to imagine the simple solution that will solve your customer’s problem(s).
It is indeed an alchemy between the fine and precise understanding of a need and the creativity necessary to elaborate an elegant solution to a problem. I’m not even talking about technology at this point!
The reality is that finding a good MVP is not easy at all. It takes a good dose of imagination, boldness, sensitivity, observation, technological knowledge, and patience.
And besides, in the very good book “Lean Startup” written by an entrepreneur Eric Ries, it is very common to make mistakes, it is even encouraged to make mistakes. Provided, however, that you are able to hear customer feedback, understand what works and what doesn’t, learn and fix it. This is called “pivoting” or “iterating” with the market.
In the end, it’s quite normal that not everyone passes their MVP, as it is nothing more or less than one test among thousands of possible solutions to the identified problem. But is it a stroke of luck?
Personally, I don’t think so, but many people do. I believe in what is called “product vision”, that is, the ability to project an ecosystem of actors into a solution that solves a major problem. The major difference between a MVP that works and another is the ability to project its ecosystem into the MVP roadmap. Customers need to understand where they are being taken immediately.
The product vision
The product vision is what differentiates a MVP with very high potential from a MVP that just solves a problem (and that’s already a good achievement).
Finally, it is essential to bring a personal touch to your MVP, it’s not just any MVP, it’s yours. It must create the desire and the will to use it. We’re almost in the field of aesthetics. It has to be a product that speaks to your entire ecosystem. That’s what I call the “love product effect”.
If I try to sum up the main characteristics of a successful MVP :
- Perfect understanding of customer ecosystem issues
- Building of a simple and accessible solution to these problems
- The MVP must provide an immediate glimpse of the product direction you are heading in.
- And finally, the MVP must create an emotion (love product effect)
Now the last question is : how do I build the good one ?
Let’s go deeper in my next post … see you there.
