

Fat is the new Lean - brianscordato
http://datodaily.tumblr.com/post/41220202880/fat-is-the-new-lean

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thesash
My stock comment on the subject originally posted on
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3429906>

1) MVP != half assed, cheap, shitty product. It is exactly what it says: a
minimum viable product, key word 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.

~~~
brianscordato
Very helpful - Like that first article as well, thank you. I wasn't attempting
to bash the lean movement, though I have found it more difficult to implement
with my own startup than I'd thought (emotions / fears find their way into the
equation, spurring the batch death spiral). I just wanted to point out that
there were other factors that will drive success now that the "secret" is out.
Thanks again, and hopefully I can minimize the lessons I learn painfully.

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mbesto
Brian, I can't quite seem to grasp what you're really trying to say here. It
sounds (to me) as if you're trying to justify the ubiquitous position of
entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs that 'I need to spend a lot of time
planning and building before I launch'. I get it...it's scary as hell to
launch something that is half-baked and may not feel like your proudest
moment.

Some constructive criticism - I, nor you, can comment on your user experience,
because you and I are NOT the user. I'd love to hear more about "Sheri Foxton,
who can't get enough of the app" (made-up name and story). Comments like _"Our
beta product looks and acts amazing"_ and _"two of the most talented
UX/Marketing guys in the city"_ make lean advocates like myself cringe. Lean
is about getting close to your customer, and at no point do you ever talk
about how you're actually hitting the streets. Your Appstori video is cool,
and is exactly what "lean" is about - asking potential customers if this is
something they want/need. However, there are two things that I just couldn't
get past: (1) Your video talked about YOU (Find Your Lobster company) way more
than it did ME (the person who wants to find a date). (2) I'm not sure if your
UX buddies explained the psychology of user experience (the UI looks great
btw!) but basically UX solves one problem - user frustration. If you have no
frustration to begin with, than UX means nothing. MVP's are all about creating
an app (which will inevitably include some frustration) and then adding
features and interfaces which reduce that frustration.

Anyway, good luck!

~~~
brianscordato
Thanks! Very helpful. I've kept the user experience descriptions a bit vague
as all of our user feedback has been from "lean" products - basically me
emailing people with match suggestions with screen shots of shared mutual
friends, then asking if they'd be interested in these people. We've had
favorable response to that, but until the app is in our users hands I don't
want to jump the gun. It's not yet - the stuff we can play around with works
"amazing," but a full experience is not yet built so our users don't have it
yet. I definitely could've been more specific, though.

On the video - great point. Wish we'd thought of that a bit earlier... The
hope was to prove that we were legitimate. Gaining users for a dating site is
not an easy proposition, and we should've focused more on what we can do for
users than why we are viable.

Thanks again.

~~~
mbesto
> _Gaining users for a dating site is not an easy proposition_

But finding the market is! You've got a great market to tap into. "Off to the
races" as they say...

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andrewtbham
"My app can’t afford to look like an MVP when we launch."

The V is for viable. The app he is describing is not viable.

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ericb
I find parallels with the irreducible complexity intelligent design argument.
Lean startups are oriented toward the evolutionary approach, where as fat
startups are attempts at intelligent design.

On one hand, evolution demonstrates that small changes can have beneficial
effects and building on top of them can lead to whole new paradigm shifts. On
the other hand, intelligent design _should_ be able to trump evolution. Humans
can design a car or business from whole cloth, one that is not composed of
lesser incremental changes but requires each part to make the other parts
useful.

~~~
purplelobster
My only gripe with lean methodologies is just that, that it seems like a soul-
less reactionary process at times. At its extreme anyway, I know that't not
the way it always works.

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apinstein
The point TFA makes is a non-lean (fat) company may be viable whereas the lean
version of the same concept might not be. If nothing else it's thought-
provoking. In my head I'm trying to decide if what he's doing is still lean --
one might argue that "fun marketing" is actually part of the MVP of _his_
vision. I think an argument could be made that MVP can be different based on
the team...

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erikstarck
This is one reason I like the term Minimum Desirable Product better than the
Viable dito.

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pearle
I don't consider an undesirable product to be viable so I think "viable" still
works.

~~~
qu4z-2
I'd agree, but I have found people get confused on that point. Of course, I
worry with "minimum desirable product" they'll miss the "minimal" bit.

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rednukleus
Well put. "Lean" is a great methodology in a lot of situations, but sometimes
other approaches are necessary.

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axlerunner
WTF? Seriously, lobster suits and dating apps do not mix.

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namanster
Play to your strengths. Play to your strengths.

