

The Death of the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) in Competitive Markets - alexmturnbull
http://blog.groovehq.com/post/13829640150/the-death-of-the-mvp-minimum-viable-product-in

======
mindcrime
What we really need is an article about "The Death of Articles about
(why|when|how|if) to use MVPs, written by people who don't understand Customer
Development and the Lean Startup approach."

Of the several articles decrying the MVP that I've seen hit the HN frontpage
in the past few days, every single one of them (and or the associated
comments) have shown a profound misunderstanding of what it means to follow
the Lean Startup approach. Hint: being a Lean Startup does NOT mean developing
a buggy, shitty looking, incomplete application, releasing it to the public
and hoping for the best.

Also note that the strategies for developing a product in an established
market are NOT the same as when you're creating something truly novel. If you
don't understand that, go back and re-read _The Four Steps to the Epiphany._

In fact, if I could assign homework to random people, I'd assign re-reading
that book as homework to any and every body who's tempted to write another
blog post commenting on this subject. :-)

Just to re-iterate: A couple of the major tenets of the Lean Startup approach
are to learn continuously, and specifically by gaining _validated_ learning,
AND to eliminate waste, by not building something nobody wants. Ergo, a true
MVP represents the intersection of the least you can build and still gain some
useful, validated learning (context matters here, see above about established
markets, vs entirely new products), while avoiding building stuff in advance,
that will ultimately become waste.

That's it... nothing requires your MVP to be incomplete, buggy, shitty-
looking, unstable, or any of those other things... BUT, and this is a key
_but_ , it _might_ actually be any of those things, IF it can be and still
meet the above goals!

Also nothing about the methodology per-se requires you to launch your MVP to
the entire world from day one. Ok, maybe there's something about your scenario
that dictates that the ONLY way you can gain any validated learning is through
a worldwide launch to the public... I don't know, it's your startup not mine.
But for most of us, MVPs are meant to be shown to a handpicked set of early
prospective customers, preferably ones who have _already_ been through the
earlier stages of the Customer Development process with you.

Edit: To be fair to the original author, the title does specifically mention
that he's referring to "competitive markets" and I do acknowledge that the
exact criteria for your MVP may vary when you're entering an existing market.
The one point I'll add about that, is that while Customer Development and the
Lean Startup approach still apply in this setting, they seem to be most
optimized for startups that are creating entirely new markets for radically
new products.

~~~
Idhackthat
"Of the several articles decrying the MVP...", not sure that's what's going on
here.

~~~
mindcrime
It just seems like, over the past week or so, there have been multiple
articles touching on this topic, where the article itself - or a number of the
comments - seem to disparage the idea of MVPs. Maybe I'm reading too much into
it, it's just something I seem to have noticed as a pattern recently.

~~~
Terry_B
As time goes on The Lean Startup thing is starting to look a lot like the
lifecycle Agile went through doesn't it?

\- A good idea comes along that makes a lot of sense

\- Starts to gain traction

\- Some people get a bit too religious about it which annoys some other
people.

\- Some do it well and lots do it badly

\- The annoyed people try use the examples of it done badly to make
generalisations about it, smear its name and generally miss the point
entirely.

\- on and on we go

~~~
mindcrime
Good point. :-)

------
thesash
1) MVP != half assed, cheap, shitty product. It is exactly what it says, a
minimum _viable_ product, keyword being viable. An MVP for a mission critical
application or a cutting edge piece of research isn't going to be cheap or
easy, because it needs to be viable.

2) The cycle of expectations that your product needs to be as feature rich as
your competition on day one leads to what Eric Ries calls the large batch
death spiral where it always seems like a good idea to add that one last
feature (I've been there, it's painful, and really difficult to pull out of).

3) RE: fear of ruining your reputation if your MVP isn't shiny enough-- good
news: no one knows who you are when you launch, so you have nothing to lose.
Don't launch your MVP in the press, court early adopters, listen to your
customers, and focus on building value until your product kicks the
competition's ass. If you hide from customers out of fear you take the biggest
risk of all: building something no one wants. Even if you have the best
product idea in the world, the only way to know if the features you add are
having a positive impact is to measure the behavior of real, live, human
users.

Unfortunately I think what we're seeing is the lean startup backlash where
people use the terms but don't really take the time to understand what they
mean. The Lean startup movement is a powerful set of lessons that can empower
entrepreneurs and save us from wasting our time and effort building the wrong
things and chasing the wrong metrics, but maybe some of the lessons just have
to be learned painfully through experience.

~~~
mindcrime
_a minimum viable product, keyword being viable_

Absolutely, but I'll add this posit: What "viable" means is heavily context
driven. If the goal is to learn about whether or not your specific take on
things is valid, then what your MVP will need to look like will depend on the
kind of market your pursuing, whether or not their are already existing
players in your space, how radically different your approach is, etc.

IOW... if you wanted to launch an MVP of a "Facebook Killer" and the "secret
sauce" was something, like, oh... some gamification thing... badges or
accomplishments related to making new friends, let's say. That's enough _like_
Facebook (or g+, etc.) that the expectation for a potential user would be
based around Facebook... your "secret sauce" is only an incremental
improvement, so you'd almost have to roll out something as feature rich and
visually polished as Facebook, in order to find out if you can compete. That
sucks, but one that's why there are both pluses and minuses to entering an
established market with an incremental improvement. :-)

Now if your "secret sauce" is something world-changing and totally new, like
say, "automatic Frombleglizzits when you Gwizztickum" (whatever that is), then
you may ONLY need to build enough to make people understand what "automatic
Frombleglizzits when you Gwizztickum" is, and then you can find out if that's
compelling to them or not, in isolation. If it turns out it isn't, you would
have wasted a tremendous amount of time building a complete Facebook clone
just to find that out. You have more uncertainty in this case, but this is
exactly where the Lean Startup approach helps... eliminating waste in the face
of extreme uncertainty.

 _good news: no one knows who you are when you launch, so you have nothing to
lose._

Exactly.

 _Unfortunately I think what we're seeing is the lean startup backlash where
people use the terms but don't really take the time to understand what they
mean._

Absolutely.

~~~
stcredzero
_What "viable" means is heavily context driven._

TLDR: In established markets, viable != minimal.

~~~
r00fus
> TLDR: In established markets, viable != minimal.

So it's not possible to target a niche with a specialized product that only
has 20% of the competition's features, but does those 20% properly for that
niche?

~~~
stcredzero
It's still possible. What I mean, is don't expect to be able to get away with
something as skimpy as you would in a totally new market.

------
rickmb
Why do people keep writing articles bitching about the shortcomings of MVP
filled with examples that clearly miss the "viable" part?

It's like reading about people complaining BLT sandwiches have no meat if you
leave out the bacon...

Am I missing something?

~~~
andrewflnr
They're complaining about everyone else missing the "viable" part.

------
breckinloggins
MVP doesn't really apply to VC financing in my opinion. Or, it does, but it
stands for "Minimum Viable Pitch".

The whole POINT of a lean startup is not to go running for cash the instant
you think you have a good idea. With today's scalable cloud platforms that
start at zero dollars, low cost or free development environments, and plenty
of freelance help when you need it, WHY do people still think they need $10
million to launch a website or build an app?

Especially their first one?

I contend that if you are building a product for the sole purpose of taking a
juicy exit, then you are just taking part in the gold rush (and he's right, it
is a gold rush). In that case, no amount of practical advice applies to you,
because if you're being honest with yourself, your whole mission is to create
the "Minimum Viable Pitch" that gets the VCs interested and then hang around
long enough to get acquired.

And that has nothing to do with creating really good stuff.

Here's an idea: think of something you HAVE to build because you can't wait to
start using it yourself. Define the "Minimum Viable Product" as that thing you
have to build before you can start happily using it yourself. Now, go show it
off. If people are interested, sell it or put in ads or whatever you have to
do.

If it starts going like gangbusters and you need financing to grow or else
you're really going to start pissing your customers off, then go looking for
money with your now very REAL track record in hand. You know, because at this
point you really NEED that money.

Seems like common sense to me. Also seems a lot more authentic and ethical.

But what if you really ARE building the next Facebook and need $50 million to
spend on servers and office space and Aeron chairs and....

Well that's probably not your first startup, so nothing in the article is news
to you anyway. If it IS your first startup, you crazy.

------
avand
An important distinction, at least in my definition of MVP, is that you're
flexing on scope, not quality. If you release crap, you can't accurately
assess the viability of your idea. If you release a quality product that does
one or two things really well then you can measure product market fit and
start iterating on new functionality. By restricting scope, you give yourself
a better chance of getting to that point.

As @alexmturnbull suggests, the equation is a little different when your scope
is large just to be a contender in a space.

~~~
Idhackthat
Preach! ...I would add that there's a great deal of emotional complexity
involved in great product design, and its easier said than done to determine
correctly what is "viable" from what isn't for an initial launch product -
even if its well tested (while I understand @alexturnbull isn't saying testing
is bad, nor is he saying MVPs are inherently inappropriate or obsolete). That
said, many of these "viable" touch-points are often intangibles - not discrete
interactions, features or functional benefits, and this is something that can
be really costly to get right. Hard to beef with the argument he's making
specific to competitive markets. Its absolutely costly to enter competitive
markets... Many product authors continue to miss the mark for what is MVP
because these same "mission critical products" are getting more and more
sophisticated, and consumer expectations are being raised all the time.

------
segabach
This probably won't be a popular opinion here, but anyone using the term "MVP"
has always set off red flags of failure for me. The best products come from
people who are in love with technology scratching their own itch.

People wanting to "do a startup" are most likely in for a world of hurt. If
you're not writing code on a daily basis (because that's what you do!) and
eventually writing code to solve a problem you're having, or just cause you
have a cool idea, then the likelihood of success is basically nil.

~~~
mindcrime
Following the Lean Startup approach isn't incompatible with scratching your
own itch, or with having passion or whatever. It's just a way to avoid wasting
a ton of time and money building something that ultimately fails because
nobody wants it.

Now if you look at a project through the lens of "even if it fails as a
company, I win anyway because of the lessons I learned from building it" or
something similar, then I could see the argument for disregarding this
approach. But the idea really just reduces to "build what you want to build,
but do it iteratively and combine some validated learning about your market
along with your development."

~~~
segabach
Indeed, the lens is what I'm talking about. I'd go so far as to argue that you
should never approach a new project as a potential company and instead just
build things you find fun/useful/novel. The greatest successes (financially,
world impact) I've seen have been from developers making cool projects. These
eventually got traction and the developer had investors... beating down the
door. At that point the project turned into a company (although not one that
had revenue). Growth continued because the products were awesome and
eventually led to massive acquisitions.

You could argue that they hit their MVP and that's when everything took off
but the mindset was definitely "I'm going to build something cool" opposed to
"I'm going to build an MVP so I can have a startup".

These founders eventually left post-acquisition and have since continued to
crank out new projects without regard to commercial viability. Not what the
business schools teach but they have "won" so I don't think they care.

~~~
mindcrime
That's not so different from the way I'm approaching the startup I'm working
on. It did start as something that I just thought would be cool to work on,
and everything is open-source, and I definitely figure that I win from doing
the project no matter whether it becomes commercially successful or not.

That said, I feel like it is something that has a chance commercially, and we
are actually employing the Customer Development / Lean Startup model to
things. I don't necessarily see that as incompatible with "doing cool stuff."
I'm just prioritizing the "cool stuff" a little, based on feedback from
potential customers. That's a sacrifice that I, personally, can live with.
YMMV. :-)

------
viscanti
MVPs in Competitive/Established markets need to be exploring new solutions to
the problem area, ideally with a chance of having a 10x+ improvement over
established solutions. They shouldn't be poor replications of an established
player with traction.

The point of an MVP is to learn about a market/problem-area. If there are
established players, it's easier and less expensive to learn from them. The
goal is to learn as much about the market/problem-area as fast as possible. In
new markets, that usually requires a MVP. In established markets, that might
require an MVP testing a new solution. If the goal is to compete in an already
competitive market that demands a polished solution, anything less is likely
to fail.

------
moocow01
I think the rhetoric around MVP all boils down to market maturity...

MVP: If you are in a brand new market with few competitors you should put out
an MVP. You will likely beat your competitors to the punch on visibility and
customers will be willing to pay because of the relatively few quality
alternatives.

No-MVP: If you are in a mature market your MVP will get you nowhere because
there will be many competitors already there who are already competing with
very mature products. (Ex. how many people will buy your MVP car made out of a
hunk of steel, wheels, and a mower engine... 0 people)

So why all this talk of MVP...

Because many of the tech and startup markets of the last 5-10 years are
maturing.

If you are creating a Fart iPhone app - that thing better be polished and be
the best damn fart app because that market has become mature (well i suppose
the wrong word choice but you get my drift).

On the other hand, if you are creating an iPhone app that lets you control
your microwave, an MVP version would most likely be beneficial because its
unknown if there is even all that much of a market for that.

~~~
tomblomfield
I think you're misunderstanding "minimum viable" part of MVP.

"minimum viable" != "shitty", it means the bare minimum that is required to
gain the validated learning in the product's market context. In a mature
market, a product will generally have to be more polished to reach viability..

~~~
moocow01
I think thats exactly what Im saying

------
yonasb
The MVP is not dead. Crappy MVP's are dead. Totally agree with @avand, it's
about scope vs. quality. Quality is where the "V" comes in. But I also agree
with the author, in that private beta is the way to go if you are launching an
MVP. That's what I'll be doing in about a month with my iOS app

~~~
Idhackthat
yep. yep.

------
john_flintstone
"groovehq.com"

Maybe I should know this, but are these guys some kind of 37signals offshoot,
or have they just copied the 'hq' thing?

>Groove is a hosted customer support and engagement platform that helps
companies manage customer support across all types of channels - email, web,
live chat, mobile, Twitter and more.

Tells me nothing. Nobody signed their name to this piece of whatever, and I
have no idea why I should be paying any attention to it. Who are they, and why
are their obviously self-submitted pontifications worth my time?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=alexmturnbull>

~~~
alexmturnbull
don't hate the playa, hate the game.

------
cnorgate
If you know the problem you're solving and how to solve it well (i.e. product-
market fit), then you shouldn't waste your time on a hack MVP. Build something
awesome.

Unfortunately, the majority of work for a startup is about finding product-
market fit. A la Steve Blank, a new product rarely survives first contact with
customers. As such, spending too much time on something that will inevitably
be changed doesn't make much sense.

Also, some people who are testing out ideas are probably just exploring,
playing with the idea in their own head. It helps to send something out to
friends simply to generate conversation and get quick feedback.

Don't hate.

------
sallen
Groove™ huh? Aren't you infringing on Microsoft's trademark?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Groove>

~~~
drumdance
Speaking of solutions in search of a problem...

