Redefining MVPs: A faster way to de-risk new product ideas

The article is brilliant.
Here's what I can confirm from actual personal experience :

If you have to beg people to try your product, something is wrong:

• you're trying to serve customers who don't have the problem you're promising a solution for

• the problem is not prioritized high enough for the customer.

Most people don't act until their smock is figuratively on fire - when they have motivations. In Germany, this is called the "Kittel brennt factor".

Having read dozens of startup books, very few have managed to put excellent MVP best practices so simply. Thank you for sharing.

From years of failed projects, don't start with a new idea. Start with something existing, very useful but due to some strategic planning, they left out some market. Target those market to become established. When you have cash cows, then you can move to more innovative products.

I ain`t a developer, but as an Entrepreneur its a hype vs the commitment, some people take advantage of emerging new tech trends and tend to make use of tools to growth hack their presence, on the http://minnesota.multiproroofing.com/ hand i feel there are ppl that have been working on a particular issue for years ignring emerging trends, bitcoin could be one of the great example...

I am unable to access this article, for some reason. Would love to check it out!

Oooh -- I wrote this essay! It hasn't even been shared yet on my newsletter, so to see it resonating so well with you guys is really cool! Thanks for the lovely comments and hope that it helps you make better and more research-led MVPs :)

Btw, if you liked this essay feel free to sub to my newsletter The Full-Stack Researcher.

"Hygiene Features are solved problems"

"If your startup is destined to fail, it won’t be because of your ‘Forgot Password’ flow — it will be the discovery that your Unique Product Attributes are not useable, valuable, feasible or viable (’The Four Big Risks’)"

The above are wisdom rules! I keep reading them again n again.. truly inspiring. Thanks!

This article is awesome! Thanks @ZergLurker.

We had the same problem. We then chose Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) as our go to method to identify product sweet spots. So, instead of starting with an idea, we started by understanding the processes in industries we would like to improve. We started by performing 5 interviews with the people responsible for these processes and identified the top 5 pain points in the overall process. You can do that with business and end users as well. Works like a charm. You avoid wasting time and money. And you already have your first paying customers, once you have the product or service up and running.

Founders that solve a ‘mild inconvenience’ end up begging target customers to consider their product. Choose your problem wisely.

This hit me right in the feels.

hey Zach, love what you're building. Might show some potential for a collab with one of my clients along the way.

I agree with some of your takes on MVP building. If you're interested you can take a look at one of the resources I've built for my clients on a budget that are looking to build their "minimum viable brand" in order to map out ideas and concepts so it is more structured to go out and validate the right things.

Check it out if you're interested I can share a copy with you and would love your input on it for future iterations. Collab on these topics with people from different professional angles is always better for creating value for the people we want to use it.

https://wellpalcreative.com/lemonade-stand/mvb-kit/

Love this approach. It makes perfect sense. I've just read all of your related articles that you link to at the end too and wow, I've learned so much. Bookmarking your site for future reference.

Brilliant article. I've read a lot of 'startup' books and none of them have been able to put good MVP practice into such a well-written and actionable plan. Thanks for sharing.