When to know when you've reached MVP?
I recently started working on https://blether.chat which is a live visitor chat that uses slack instead of a custom standalone app. But I'm struggling to know what is really an MVP for this. Normally, I go for what solves the problem. But since this is a mature market and all the competitors have lots of features, what is actually a viable product in that space?
Just now I have:
- Ability to add a chat widget to your site without cookies so no need for the dreaded cookie banner.
- Ability for a visitor to create a chat
- Have different inboxes/teams who are able to handle the chat based on the subject the chat is about.
- It sends the visitor an email when there is a response and they have left the chat.
- They can reply to the email and that response will be added.
- You can reply to a chat via the web app
- The dashboard shows the latest unanswered responses.
- Ability to change the colours of the widget
- Ability to see if there is someone online for the chat from slack.
To me, this seems like I've reached MVP but at the same time, I worry that it's missing lots of crucial features.
While I'm working on it constantly and moving at a pretty good speed. And improving it constantly, I'm wondering at what point should I start marketing it?
I'm planning on doing a freemium model where people can use it for free for a small usage (250 conversations a month or something) and then have to upgrade to get extra features and more conversations but while I'm developing it I want to have all features usable for testing purposes. I'm also worried that the open beta testing will put people off. Is that something to be worried about?
I have a standard landing page while I'm working on coming up with a proper design and stuff at https://blether.chat.
I think you're already at MVP. IMO it just needs to implement the very core idea and be usable by customers. It doesn't need to be polished or have any other features. It just needs to demonstrate value by solving the core problem, even in a crude way.
So for blether.chat, does it allow the user to have "a live visitor chat that uses slack instead of a custom standalone app"? And can the customer use it? If so, then yes, it's at least an MVP.
I think you're at MVP when you or a customer can use the app and receive some concrete output that's worth opening the app up for.
You have added the feature to adapt the colour, so it should be ready for a real life test 😎
What have you done in terms of customer interviews?
Good work on the app Iain !
IMO this is what your MVP should be since that's the main feture of your app. If you can validate the main feature works it's easier then to morve to other direction!
Did you try getting some user feedback about the features and if they felt like there was enough to give it a spin?