|
By Elyse Ball All throughout startup land we throw around the term “minimum viable product” or “MVP.” The term is meant to signify a simpler, uglier version of a product that customers will still buy. But for perfectionists like me (and many of the engineers I know), it’s hard to commit to making a product that is categorically less than the best we can do. Why would we show customers a product that is only 50% of what it could be when we’re pre-wired to want to give our customers 110%? It turns out there are a few good reasons:
The MVP is a way to let your customers interact with your product earlier in its development. Rather than guessing at perfect, you’re letting your customers participate in defining what good enough looks like. By asking them to pay for the product at some point during this process, you’re also making sure that they are giving you an honest answer backed by real dollars and not just telling you what you want to hear. Remember, your MVP isn’t for everyone. It’s only for your most enthusiastic and motivated customers – those people who say they desperately need to have the product today. What you’re trying to prove is that some group of people will wait in a tent overnight to get access to a buggy, ugly product.   That’s when you know you’re solving a really big problem or filling a really big need. You aren’t filling much of a market need if your most motivated customers won’t pay for your product until it’s perfect. If you need some inspiration to start sharing your product prototypes and charging for an MVP version of your product, here are a few famous version 1 products: The 1st Generation iPod was big and clunky with awkward buttons and uncomfortable earpods. Plus, it cost $400. But it was perfect for music junkies who wanted to carry around 1,000 songs rather than the 15 songs a portable CD player could hold. Zenith’s 1st TV remote was similarly big and awkward and could only perform a few functions, like powering the TV on and changing the channel. Before this, you had to literally stand up to turn on your TV (mind blown), so yeah, it was a big deal.   Under Armour’s “Prototype 0037” shirt really is as short as it looks in the photo. It wicked away sweat like no shirt before it and made athletes look buff in the process, so it was still a hit with some gym rats. An early homepage for Netflix shows the service they used to offer. They mailed you DVDs… and then you mailed the DVD back and got another one. For movie buffs who were tired of paying video rental late fees and wanted access to 100,000 movie titles, this was huge.  Earlier this year, I discussed the stress, challenges and exhilaration of MVP sales in an interview with Matt Crowley and Bill Wichert from Cleveland-based startup Signal Cortex. During the TechStars Accelerator program, Matt and Bill were encouraged to find paid pilot customers. “I'm just shaking my head like, ‘Who would pay for a pilot? Who would even do this?!?’” Matt said.
The key was clarifying the biggest problem their potential customers had. “One of the buying motivations of our first customer was he was driving around at 2:00 in the morning, going to customers in different states because he could no longer manage all the pieces of his business and it was starting to eat into all of his time,” Bill said. “When we figured that out, it was like, ‘OK, now we know we found the group that has the problem.’ And then we pivoted and within three weeks we had our first customer.” In three weeks, Matt rebuilt the Signal Cortex product to include the elements their customer needed to have. The team is continuing to iterate the product at the same time they are onboarding more customers. So save perfection for version 2 or 3 or 27 of your product. Share the prototype you can build today with the customers who want it most. If you’re solving a real problem for them, you’ll be surprised what they’re willing to try out, give feedback on, or even pay for.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
RSS Feed