
I got 400 signups with a video of a product that didn’t exist - semy
https://www.lunadio.com/blog/i-got-400-signups-with-a-video-of-a-product-that-didnt-exist/
======
yummypaint
I can see the appeal of doing this, and for things like UI design it makes
alot of sense, but it seems too easy to cross ethical lines. Theranos
basically did this, though of course on a vastly larger scale and over a
longer time period. In the beginning, it's easy to tell ones self that filling
in the gaps will come naturally once funding and interest are available. when
there are difficulties executing on promises, it creates a choice between
perpetuating the dishonesty for a low cost, or coming clean for a much higher
cost. As time goes on, the feedback continues until there is some kind of
breaking point. If you're going to do this, you had better be damn sure you
can deliver, and have some sort of pre-determined go/no-go points to prevent
things from getting out of hand.

~~~
semy
Well, we delivered and the people who signed up got invitation to the beta.
This approach is everywhere but we forget somehow look at them differently.

Look at the
[https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck](https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck) ... They
even collect money, but we are not sure if the whole company Tesla will be
here in 2 months. Can we trust that companies will show us only super
functioning thing?

~~~
phalox
It's all in the way you communicate things... People should never feel fooled,
but you can show them something that doesn't exist yet to start their
imagination.

But there are of course ethical lines. Here's an interesting read:
[https://www.mironov.com/lying/](https://www.mironov.com/lying/)

~~~
semy
Thanks! :) I will take a look.

------
satvikpendem
This is something I mentioned before as well
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18858703](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18858703)):

I'm creating an open source todo list + calendar webapp
([https://getartemis.app](https://getartemis.app), source at
[https://github.com/satvikpendem/artemis](https://github.com/satvikpendem/artemis))
made by just me, and I can tell you how I approached the problem. The video
you see on the front page does not exist in code, it is simply a prototype
designed with Figma ([https://figma.com](https://figma.com)) and animated with
Principle ([https://principleformac.com](https://principleformac.com)). I
created the landing page and video, added a Mailchimp form, and I posted on
Twitter, Reddit, and here on Hacker News, the communities in which it made
sense. For me, it's a productivity / task management tool, so I would post on
reddit.com/r/getdisciplined or reddit.com/r/productivity.

It's all about creating a minimum viable product, as you might well be aware,
but what you may not know is that an MVP need not have code. Indeed, it could
be a video as I did, and I think for software, a video works best as people
can actually see what it looks and feels like, without you necessarily
creating the product architecture (full frontend and backend plus devops etc).
Now I have over 150 subscribers (edit: now 1100 as of July 2020) in only a
month due to rapid creation of this type of MVP, and based on this feedback, I
changed my designs, and only now I am beginning to really create the heart of
the product.

Using non-code MVPs is the best way in my opinion to sell quickly before
building.

~~~
MereInterest
I think I'd make a huge distinction between a reasonable demonstration, which
may be a video, and a minimum viable product, which must have code associated
with it. If it isn't functional, and could not be sold in its current state,
then it isn't a viable product.

~~~
satvikpendem
Sure, I made clear they were just signing up for the mailing list, not the
product itself. They're not paying customers but they're an audience I can
sell to later. I expect only 10 percent will convert to the paid product, but
that's better than 0%, when you have no audience.

~~~
MereInterest
Got it, and that sounds perfectly reasonable. I'd describe it entirely
differently from an MVP, but it is reasonable to make a demo to judge
reactions and see where points of confusion are in how the product will work.

~~~
satvikpendem
As well, there are two large categories of MVPs, low fidelity and high
fidelity ([https://www.robotmascot.co.uk/18-types-of-minimum-viable-
pro...](https://www.robotmascot.co.uk/18-types-of-minimum-viable-product/)),
and subtypes within that.

What I did was a "fake door" MVP, as the article states. It is not necessarily
intended for directly measuring sales but whether its worth my time to build
it in the first place. Having over a thousand sign-ups now, it validates that
I should indeed spend my time on it.

Then, I would make a high fidelity one, a "one feature" MVP as the article
calls it, which would cut the product down to its essence and see if it can
still solve a specific problem, and whether people would still pay for only
one feature. I am doing this now with a mobile app instead of web/desktop app
as the reduced screen space forces me to think about the problem of time block
productivity from its essence.

Perhaps your definitions of MVP are different than others, which is perfectly
fine. There are others I've seen over the years like simple, lovable, complete
(products), and so on
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22955085](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22955085)).

~~~
MereInterest
Yeah, I think we are arguing semantics. For me, not being an entrepreneur, the
"viable product" portion of MVP seems like it is a useful distinction. In your
original post, when you said that you had an MVP that just consisted of a
video, I interpreted it as a form of fraud. (i.e. "I sold customers a product
that doesn't exist, using a video to fool them.")

~~~
sooheon
This terminology fuzziness is a direct result of SEO. "MVP" = Good Thing in
entrepreneurial circles, so things that are not viable products are labeled as
such because they want to be associated with that keyword.

~~~
PaulStatezny
100%. satvikpendem is doing wordplay. A video of a nonexistent piece of
software is a useful tool, but a viable product it is not.

That he's denying this proves your point.

~~~
satvikpendem
I don't think so. Look at the other comments replying to my thread. The
definition of MVP can mean finding the fastest way to validate with the least
effort, as Eric Ries is quoted in the other comment. Perhaps at one point MVP
did literally mean the smallest usable product but now the product does not
necessarily need to be usable, it just has to validate a hypothesis.

~~~
PaulStatezny
Edit: Agree to disagree.

/shrug

~~~
satvikpendem
> And a WIP can mean something I haven't even started on yet. /s

> You're twisting the meaning of the words in the acronym. I really don't
> care, but it renders the words meaningless to use them that way.

Again, I'm not sure how to explain that MVP does not literally mean an actual
product. It's a tool for hypothesis testing, you don't spend time and energy
building out your entire product before you show something to customers, that
would be a waste of time and energy. That's why I, and others, define MVP as
anything that let's you understand something new about your market and
eventually you use that knowledge to make a product.

------
est
> to do around 1500 banner ads. ... We got 6 products in 5 colors and the aim
> was to create ad banners for 3 countries. The goal was to create 15 formats
> of each banner ad

Such product exists: Alibaba Luban. It was announced back in 2016 and here's a
real world generated example of it:

[https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv59884/](https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv59884/)

There's few demo GIFs show how text and picture align differently in position
with different size of layout.

Product page (in Chinese):

[https://luban.aliyun.com/](https://luban.aliyun.com/)

some blogs

[https://www.alibabacloud.com/blog/alibaba-luban-ai-based-
gra...](https://www.alibabacloud.com/blog/alibaba-luban-ai-based-graphic-
design-tool_594294)

[https://www.alibabacloud.com/blog/the-evolution-of-luban-
in-...](https://www.alibabacloud.com/blog/the-evolution-of-luban-in-designing-
one-billion-images_596118)

~~~
semy
Thanks for sharing! In the past all graphic materials were done by graphic
designers. In Photoshop, there is huge flexibility what you can do. Basically,
you limit only yourself what you want to create. And the plugin leverage
mostly this.

If you see, Bannersnack basically do the same thing, problem is, that they
don't have that reach functionalities as Photoshop has.

Thanks for sharing anyway, good to know! :)

------
ryanmccullagh
Depending on your business model, a sign up can be considered a conversion, or
not. If you're selling a subscription service, a sign up would not be
considered a conversion, in my view.

------
DougN7
How is this title different from “I lied publicly and people believed me” ?

~~~
semy
Well. I showed them the future tool and if they liked it, they could
subscribe. If you call this a lie, then whole Tesla is a lie
[https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck](https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck)

\+ I haven't collected any money from people.

What would you say on Kickstarters? When they are just in "prototype" phase
and they even not sure if they can deliver? And they are even collecting
money.

------
xwdv
Ok Dropbox.

I get tired of these startups thinking they can just throw up videos of non-
existent products and get signups as some kind of validation.

Consumers patience will wear thin when they find pretty much every new startup
pulls the same crap, until interest in new startups reaches all time lows and
this strategy doesn’t work anymore.

Then the only way to validate things will be the old fashioned way: take a
risk and build shit up front. If it doesn’t sell that’s your problem, the
consumer doesn’t care. Not everyone is entitled to cheap and easy validation.

Don’t fake, just make.

~~~
Permit
> I get tired of these startups thinking they can just throw up videos of non-
> existent products and get signups as some kind of validation.

Why? I'd suggest they take it one step further: Offer discounted pre-orders
and use that to measure if people are interested. The only way to be sure that
someone is willing to pay for what you're building is to ask them to pay for
it.

> Then the only way to validate things will be the old fashioned way: take a
> risk and build shit up front.

This is bad advice. You should never take on risk that you don't have to. A
startup is full of anticipated and unanticipated risks, there is no reason to
expose yourself to even more.

For reference, we tried your approach at my first startup. We built something
people found really cool but that no one wanted to pay for. We wasted eight
months doing this.

Our next product was launched with minimal tech investment (1-2 weeks of
development) and accepted pre-orders. We made $x,xxx this way and things went
very well. If we hadn't sold enough we would have refunded all of our pre-
orders and chose to work on something that people actually wanted.

~~~
xwdv
As a consumer, you want startups to build stuff up front. That way you can
immediately tell if they executed correctly and you want to spend money.

Startups though don’t want to build shit. They want to pass on the risk of a
failed product to the consumer. They’ll get consumers hopes up and then say
“whoops, not enough people wanted this so we’re not building it too bad”

This is also why even if you do build something people might not even use it
until you reach a certain level of success because consumers don’t want to
invest time and money into some product that can disappear overnight.

~~~
volkk
honestly, i've stopped paying attention to products that startups fake launch.
i'm sure im not the only one and also not the only one that's worked in the
sphere and realizes just how poorly built/thought out everything is. moviepass
is a prime example. your sign up pages that lead to nothing/nowhere because
you got demotivated or too lazy or didn't find funding or the other plethora
of reasons are exactly why i ignore them all and close out of the tab. your
"secretive" coming soon pages are stuck in 2013. if this is a product that is
serious/legitimate, then i'm sure i'll hear about it through friends, HN or TC
or something. i'm starting to think that the "startup" field is mostly
populated by people who do it just to put "CEO/Founder" in their linkedin bio.

------
TrackerFF
I'm sure that if your product is "hot" enough, and checks all the trendy
boxes, a fake video / pitchbook will not only yield signups, but actual
investor money.

------
ilaksh
Right so that is called "lying". I mean it's the worst form. Normally people
at least say it's "coming soon" or something. Rather than just falsely saying
it exists.

------
kaishiro
Although tangential to the point of the article, interestingly enough, this
product _does_ exist to some extent. A really talented developer that I used
to work with has created a pretty neat Figma plugin to generate production
ready ad banners on the fly
([https://www.figmaticapp.com/bannerify](https://www.figmaticapp.com/bannerify)).
I have no financial benefit to sharing this - just a fan of his work.

------
jitendrac
I know its very important to validate the Idea before starting the work, and
such videos are great way to do that. But I strongly believe such videos must
embed some sort of information like "Conceptual working of Future product" or
"Video represents the basic concept of our targeted product".

These types of info/notes will high likely give you the list of possible
future buyer using the forms like "Add to wish-list","Be the first one to know
when we release".

~~~
semy
While I was posting this to the groups, I spoke to people and I told them the
facts about that, if they asked. Nobody was pissed off, everybody was happy,
that somebody was solving their pain.

~~~
jitendrac
In-person discussion is always a key to understand the client needs.They will
surely be glad to discuss their problem because they are searching for some
solution.

------
blickentwapft
Silicon Valley normalises these sort of lies as ethical.

It’s not lying, it’s “hustle”.

There’s ways to present that aren’t outright deceptive.

It’s a strange blog post because it’s not an admission to be proud of.

~~~
gowld
It's a valid concern but a weird to criticize it on a website that exists
specifically as a marketing arm of a business dedicated to that purpose.

------
emayljames
The website for the plugin is full of spelling mistakes, bad grammar and has
light gray text on white backgrounds in places.

------
missedthecue
How many has Elon Musk gotten with the same strategy?

~~~
semy
And lot of people love him, lol...

