Launch that MVP!

An MVP means Minimum Viable Product

Minimum - Smallest, bare essentials

Viable - Useful, functional

For many, this may not be a new term, but a practice still regularly missed.

An MVP is a strategic release of your product that meets the core needs of your target market, has just enough features to satisfy early adopters, and has enough room for feedback and iteration.

When Product ideation starts (typically between very few people), nobody really anticipates that they’ll stay ideating and building forever, but very frequently this happens!

I have seen many instances where:

• The team isn’t satisfied with the initial build, so they scrap it out and start all over again
• The founder does not feel the product encapsulates his vision, so there is no go-ahead to push it to the market.
• Experts and ‘consultants’ are introduced to review the build and the team takes the feedback to tinker more with the product
• There is stakeholder misalignment on the product benefits, so team members are stuck in bureaucracy and the product becomes a shadow of the initial vision

An MVP can be:

• A first public release: Sometimes MVP is the first publicly available version.
• An iterative refinement: MVP can be a refined version, building upon previous prototypes or alpha releases.
• A stripped-down version: MVP might be a simplified version of a more complex product.

Where your focus should be on:

• Validating assumptions
• Testing core functionality
• Gathering user feedback
• Reducing risk

Here are a couple of things for you to remember:

1?? Your product is not for you. It is for the customer.

This is usually a hard pill for many people to swallow.?

Typically, those of us building may never fit into the persona we are building for!

The vision may be yours, but you are not the user.

Yes, you have spent sleepless nights and resources on the product, but you are not the user.

Let the real users guide you.

The only way this can happen is by getting your product into their hands.

2??. Starting small is not a bad thing!

One of the reasons why many businesses do not want to launch an MVP is that they want to start big. As a force. Rivaling with the big guys in the game… so you want to build everything and then some.

Historically, this hardly ever ends well (we can dive more into this on another day)

Quick question:

Would you rather have a 100 people who love your product or 100,000 who kind of like it?

Don’t be too quick to choose the massive number.

In reality, those types of users are quicker to churn and rarely refer your product to someone else. People who love your product, however, are your key to longevity, and if you leverage them well… viral effects.

One of the best parts about starting with an MVP is earning these early adopters. Your very first set of cheerleaders!?

Remember that there are benefits to starting small.

3??. Don’t fall in love with your MVP, it will change.

Don’t FALL in love with anything!

• Your brand colours
• Your taglines and catchphrases
• Your Unique Value Propositions
• Your tech stack

Everything is a hypothesis until proven true

Even when proven,? the market can decide to change its mind.

4??. Give yourself/team a very specific deadline?

Over analysing leads to analysis paralysis.

Hard deadlines work because they remind us that time is a constraint as much as cost is, so we shouldn’t waste it.

Every team should jointly shortlist and rank what features go into an MVP. Why do you need a shortlist? Because you are building a Version 1, you can’t have everything.

For example, if you are releasing a food delivery app, Integrating Google Maps should be a must-have, but a search and filter is more of a Nice to Have.

Focus on the core benefits that can fit into your hard deadline.

5??. Listen to your users ??

There are many tools and resources to gather user feedback, and the best teams take their time to listen and learn from users, rather than enforcing their own agenda.

If you do whatever you want, you must accept whatever you get.

The philosophy that “If you build, they will come” is one that barely worked in the 90s so why should you stay stuck with that now?

6??. There are no bad endings!

Whether your MVP fails or takes off in the market, you win!?

For every failure, you carry back a bag full of lessons, for dare I say, an inexpensive price.

Imagine waiting a year before realizing that a market does not need your core feature when you could have discovered so in 2 weeks.

A win is even better!

Imagine learning in 2 weeks that the market is ripe and ready for you, imagine the confidence that gives to your team, the validation for deep and intentional work.

I hope this little post of mine can convince you, or at least get the conversation started. I have a lot more to say, but I am willing to keep this post short and sweet. You can shoot me a comment, DM, or email if you would like to discuss this further.

For now… go LAUNCH THAT MVP!

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Keep Growing and Exploring!

Joke Shalom Akintara

Growth Product Manager | Curator of "Growth Notes"