

Minimum Viable Brand? - someproduct
http://patrickwoods.tumblr.com/post/24622927395/minimum-viable-brand

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mvanveen
I fundamentally disagree with the thesis that because a product is centered
around a "lifestyle brand," it is ineligible for lean, iterative development.

As someone currently investigating a product like this as a side project, I
definitely see the warning of only having one chance to show off your product
to an audience. However, the fallacy is the assumption that you have one
audience.

For example, I am much more willing to burn my reputation with someone coming
inbound from an AdWords click over someone coming from the front page on
reddit. Why? The person in the latter case has significantly more political
capital and has much more influence in accelerating my growth.

I think a much more safe strategy is to validate your assumption that pushing
something to the front page of reddit will yield a good impression of your
brand by building up to that launch through experiments carried out across
much smaller, more disposable audiences.

I mean, this is precisely the sort of product space Eric Ries was in with
IMView. He was offering teenagers a great chat experience, and was able to
iterate on his product until there was a solid brand behind it by spending
just $5 a day on AdWords.

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dllthomas
Interesting question, but it doesn't seem to provide any sort of an answer.

