What is the role of MVP in startup validation?

MVP is the minimum viable product, and can be used to acquire users. 6 steps to build a clean MVP: Step 1: Founders sit together and sketch out on paper (or a Word document) the journey that users will go through when using the product Step 2: Based on each step the user goes through, the founders will list below the necessary functionalities required at each stage. Step 3: Once you have a draft, you can sit down with a Business Analyst (BA) to delve deeper (usually about 3-4 times more detailed) into the roadmap and functionalities needed. Step 5: Then, hand this over to your designers who will work on the detailed product interface. Step 6: The technical team (Developers) will start coding the product based on these designs.

MVP helps the founders to build a product to validate the problem. It helps the founders to learn and understand if the problem really exists and if the proposed solution is needed to address the problem.

The role of an MVP in startup validation is precisely that...to validate your product. Before building an MVP, you should validate your idea through customer discovery and research. A great example of this is Airbnb's early strategy when they launched their MVP during a design conference in SF, offering lodging for attendees. This simple iteration allowed them to test the concept, validate user interest, and gather feedback. It reduced initial investment, accelerated market entry, and laid the foundation for iterative development. Airbnb's success underscores how a well-executed MVP can efficiently validate a business idea, shaping the platform into a global leader by aligning with user needs and preferences.

An MVP isn't just a product development strategy; it's a startup's litmus test for market fit and customer value. It's about learning what resonates with your audience with the least effort and investment. But here's a twist - MVP is not just about the product; it's about the story you're telling. It's a narrative that you're testing in the real world, a hypothesis about your customers' needs and your ability to meet them. Your MVP is your first conversation with your market. Remember, the success of a startup is not just in launching but in adapting and evolving based on real-world feedback. That's the power of an MVP. It's not the endgame; it's the starting point of your entrepreneurial journey.

PRETOTYPE AND TEST LIKE TESLA As innovation facilitator of 100+ projects, I like to share how Tesla interested buyers for their first car. In 2003, the founders of Tesla had an ambitious idea (an all-electric 2-door sports car). In order to convince potential buyers to order its car, Tesla created a pretotype of what the car would look like. Lotus supplied Tesla with a ‘glider’ Elise - which was filled with models of key components. This was not a prototype, because the vehicle didn’t function. Tesla was able to show buyers a close proxy for the final design. Tesla asked “Will you put down a $5,000 deposit to have it built to order? From this test Tesla secured several hundred deposits, a non-trivial result to reassure their Investors

We recently build a think tank for township based black women entrepreneurs across South Africa using design thinking. This has really helped us in validating our thesis & in building a model that is user-centred. The key to a good MVP is to harness the "empathy" stage of design thinking. This is where we developed the insights needed to build the think tank. We used a combination of methods to understand the need for the think tank & the methods were user-centred in that we took into consideration the target customers. We used focus groups and quantitative methods so that we get holistic perspective. We have now launched the MVP in one province & we are using the new data to further develop the model before we can scale to other provinces.

The most fundamental reason for focusing your initial efforts on an MVP is resource allocation--both time and money. Most entrepreneurs, or most new-product teams, have finite resources. Simply put, they cannot afford to try everything all at once and see what sticks, at some point in the near or distant future. They need to learn incrementally, correct their offering incrementally, all whilst learning exponentiality between steps. The MVP allows you go from nothing to 80% of something very quickly, to learn, fail, and reiterate quickly, and--when it matters--to pivot to something completely different if that's what your customer feedback dictates.

The easiest and cheapest form of an MVP is what's called a "Concept", backed up with a physical request to the customer to actually buy the proposed offering. A concept consists of a human insight (not an observation, a real emotion-steeped insight), a benefit (what they'll get), and a reason to believe (and therefore a reason to buy). Whatever product or service your are designing can be summarised through these three elements and shared with prospective customers. At the end, they should literally be asked to buy the concept--even if for the nominal amount of $1. The ratio of asked versus purchased can tell you the strength of your concept-based MVP as you develop it further.

An MVP should be used as the litmus test for every question you need answered. It should initially answer the primary question about the customer's pain point (does it take away their pain), but once that is fundamentally cracked, it must address all the other, more execution elements of their user experience... things like how convenient or simple is it to use? what is the right cost? how is the overall buying/using/post-purchasing customer service experience? The ever-evolving MVP can be used to test-answer all these vital questions.

Before creating a minimum functioning MVP, you should have a theoretical prototype... a sketch or something else which visually embodies what you're trying to do. This should be shared with the intended customer long before an MVP is physically created (even a light one) because even at that sketch-on-paper stage, you might continue to find out new insights from your customers which could push you into completely different directions. And since resources are always limited, don't waste them on trying to optimise or stretch an MVP that should have been built differently to begin with.