

Rant: MVPs and "Failed Ideas vs Failed Execution" - planetelex

If I need a pencil to write something down, I don't want to give my email address to a company that says they are building a pencil and will let me know when I can buy it. I need a pencil now. I'll look elsewhere.<p>Quick rant on a problem I see far too often in the startup community. Startups take a decent idea, push out a hollow landing page or MVP, get bored/give up too early, and then pivot or start something else. This is then generally accepted as "it's been done before, and it failed", as if the idea itself failed - when the fact is that the piss-poor execution failed.
This is why I look negatively at MVPs and landing pages for non-existent products. While theoretically a smart way to gauge interest or spend the least amount of time failing, in practice they promote uncommitted, piss-poor, spoiled, ADD execution. If you know you're solving a problem, stick with it and iterate until it people like it.<p>So next time someone tells you "x has been done before many times, and it failed" - remember that decent ideas aren't what fail, it's the execution that fails.<p>Take a critical look at your idea (not your failed competitors) and move forward.
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arkitaip
We've seen lots of landing pages - frequently with default Boostrap look and
feel - posted on Show HN that don't even explain what the product/service is
about; all you see is a single paragraph of non-specific text and a signup
form. It's just lazy and a total misconstruction of what MVP means.

