https://medium.com/exelerate/how-to-build-an-mvp-in-30-days-3a8aa09e95e7
So what is an MVP?
I’ve heard and seen the term MVP being used to describe everything from a static landing page (takes a single person one week to design and implement) to a full-blown market-ready SaaS product (takes a whole dev team more than 6 months to deliver). If you ask me, an MVP is neither.
Why not a static landing page?
The static landing page usually serves to achieve two goals. The first is showcasing the product you might build and the other is creating a waitlist of users that might try your product once you launch. Both of these do not constitute calling your landing page a product, no matter how minimally viable it is.
Note: I believe creating a landing page for your startup and explaining the USP should be a key part of your marketing strategy and should be done ASAP, however, the landing page is not an MVP and I am willing to die on this hill if I have to!
Why not a full-blown market-ready product?
The second example of the SaaS product is at the other end of the spectrum. If the landing page does not have enough features to be called a product, the SaaS that takes 6 months to develop probably has way too many features to be called a Minimum Viable Product.
Note: There are a few problem sets out there that if you are trying to solve demand building an MVP that might take even years to develop. For example: a cancer treatment drug, building a rocket ship, electric cars etc. However, a SaaS product is not one of them!
The definition I really like the definition of Michael Seibel who is the Managing Director of Y-Combinator, the world’s leading startup accelerator:
This is the first thing you can give, to the very first set of users you want to target, in order to see if you can deliver any value at all to them.
Basically the first, leanest version of your product that will be used by the earliest of adopters. The MVP should serve as a base to validate market hypothesis and iterate from, nothing less and nothing more.
So how do you build an MVP?
My team and I, launch dozen of successful products a year. As a result, we’ve defined a framework that we follow when it comes to building an MVP which I would love to share (on a high level) with you.
Step 1. Defining the specs sheet I actually use Michael’s definition posed as a question to the founders I work with, when we are beginning to scope out the feature list for an MVP.
The question: What do you want to provide to your users, who are those users and what is the goal of the MVP we are building?
Usually by answering this question we have a pretty good idea on what should go into the MVP, but more importantly what shouldn’t go in.
Step 2. Time boxing the specs Depending on what features you are trying to deliver to the first set of customers and what the MVP goal is (proof of concept, 100 signed-up users, 1,000 user submitted posts, $1,000 MRR, etc.) you should always time box the MVP.
This can be 90 days, 60 days, 30 days or less, but no more. You can plan out a development roadmap that supersedes the 90 days, however, you should have something launched and available to your early adopters by then.
Once you set the deadline, make sure to keep to it. If your team agrees that you will need 60 days to launch your MVP, then on the 60th day push your latest update, deploy itto your server and share the url with friends and family.
To drive this point home, I really like using the quote by Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn:
If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.
Step 3. Trimming the specs You are on day 50 of your 60 days MVP roadmap, you realise that you will need at least one more month of work to complete everything you wanted to accomplish before your product is perfect and suitable for launch.
Newsflash!!! It will never be perfect, this is the first version of your product, it’s more important to launch and get feedback, than to fit it into your own subjective criteria of “being perfect”.
So in this case, instead of extending the deadline you’ve set, what you do is cut down on features. You cut, and cut, and cut until you feel comfortable of making it on time. Then once you launch you can reprioritise whether you should implement the features you’ve cut or add new ones, but this time based on actionable data provided by customer feedback, not your own preconceived ideas of the product.
Last note: Don’t make a big deal of launching your MVP
Do you remember when AirBnB launched? — How about Uber, Stripe, Snapchat, Instagram… or that startup founded by those people that you kinda know that just raised $10M in a series A funding?
The answer is no. Why? Because launching is not the important milestone that us founders make it up to be. The reason you’ve heard of the startups I listed above is because they’ve actually managed to hit milestones that are extremely rare to achieve. And they’ve done that not with the initial version of the product, but by using a constant feedback loop of customer feedback and product iterations.
That’s the goal you should have, launching your MVP is just getting a seat at the table, now the real game begins…
And I invite everyone to join the game, since I believe building a startup is the most exciting, challenging, and rewarding “career game” you can play in the 2020s.
