We share the story on how we’ve built our product Solved.io on consecutive iterations in order to prevent our startup's failure. You can read the full story on our blog: http://blog.solved.io/mvp-slides/ Don't hesitate to download the slides in order to benefit from HD :)

1. Minimum
Viable
Products
Why they are a life or death matter when
you are building a live marketplace
We share the story on how we’ve built our product Solved.io
on consecutive iterations in order to prevent failure.

2. Hello // my name is Tom
I learned how important Minimum Viable Products are the hard
way: failing my first company.
My new company, Solved, has an extra difficulty: it’s a live
marketplace - we connect people facing a software issue with
software experts live.
In this scenario, building a product on consecutive
iterations is a life or death matter.
Here’s why - and how to make it right.

3. Supply
Building a live marketplace // The number one challenge
we need to make sure the supply side and the demand side
are validated simultaneously
and follow the same path of growth.
1 2 3
Supply Supply Demand DemandDemand
software experts software experts software experts
collaborators who need
help
collaborators who need
help
collaborators who need
help

4. First MVP // validate the technology
•Our pain point: on-site training is not efficient for big
companies, and that small companies only have
forums when it comes to software issues
•Basic product need: connecting employees with
software experts live
•First Step: make sure we could establish a
proper connection between a client and
an expert within a browser using the new
WebRTC technology

5. This is Solved’s very first MVP

6. How to assess the “V” in Minimum Viable Product at this point?
It’s a 1 or 0 situation: if your product
works, then you should go on.

7. 2nd MVP // fuel the supply side
•Solved is supposed to be used with any software but
we reduced the scope to Ms Excel: it has a lot of heavy
users and is complex enough.
•Basic product need: finding experts. We could have
hired some, but it wouldn’t have proven that there is a
scalable supply (freelancers working remotely).
•Next Step: crowding experts who are
interested in taking calls and helping
people remotely within an on-demand
platform

8. 1.Build a landing page

9. 2.Drive traffic towards it
- Direct marketing: #FAIL
Reach was great but not the directories (software certifications) so it led to
few contacts we couldn’t even convert into experts.
- Infiltrate communities: #FAIL
Contacting directly people in Facebook groups, Linkedin groups led to being
banned by algorithms for phishing.
- Social media marketing #SUCCESS
Advertising on Linkedin, targeting skills and on Facebook targeting
interests.That led to amazing conversions and costs of acquisition of $10.

10. How to assess the “V” in Minimum Viable Product at this point?
When testing acquisition methods,
your key indicator is ROI.
That said, even though there was room for improvement to
reduce our CACs, there was no time for it so we never improved
anything with this process.

11. 3rd MVP // qualify and quantify your supply
•We tried emailing experts a list of questions: we only
got a 10% open rate. Then we built an in-app
questionnaire which worked well.
•We made sure experts were not “paid to wait” by
having them invest some time and energy on signing
up and we nurtured them with newsletters.
•Next Step: test the experts’ skills to get a
minimum volume and engage them on
our platform

12. How to assess the “V” in Minimum Viable Product at this point?
The key is to avoid vanity metrics.
We could have bragged about having 1000s of experts. 100 can
seem a few but it was enough to prove our point: the experts we
need exist, and they are willing to work with us for $20/hour
because we offer great flexibility conditions.

13. 4th MVP // fuel your demand accordingly
•We needed to know how we could catch clients
right when they face a software issue to connect
them with an expert.

14. 1.Build a landing page
we actually built several: focused on Excel, Photoshop, etc.

15. 2.Drive traffic towards it
Using Adwords: we bid on keywords like “problem VLOOKUP excel” and got a
$10 of CAC with a good potential reach, which was perfect.

16. How to assess the “V” in Minimum Viable Product at this point?
Just like the supply side: ROI is your
friend.

17. 5th MVP // qualify and quantify your demand
•We could not “stock” any of our alpha users: once they
signed up, we were supposed to be able to connect
them with an expert.
•Our technology wasn’t ready so we had to use tricks to
connect experts and clients (using live-chat plugins,
Skype etc.)
•We needed to check that our experts could solve
our client’s issues

18. Live-chat with a
client on the
landing page
Checking out which
experts were available
on Skype
Four (painful) days later…
Our first call!
while

19. How to assess the “V” in Minimum Viable Product at this point?
We realized that our clients had real
issues that our experts could fix live
within 20 minutes.
There are many reasons why this could have been a failure: if the
client had been more expert than our expert, if the client was
really incapable of anything, if the calls had lasted only 2 minutes
or 2 hours. Big victory for us.

20. It showed us we needed to build a kick-ass product to automate the connexion between clients and experts :)

21. To sum up // building a live marketplace means…
Handle instant liquidity on both supply & demand.
Test acquisition on each side - at a reasonable
ROI and using scalable methods
Test your first users retention
Focus on the supply side before the demand
side.
Possibly build your own technology.
Uber couldn’t use phone lines: they needed
their magic app!
Build your app while testing your supply and
demand
In the meantime, use your imagination!

22. Thank you, we are
Read more on our blog.
Try solved for free now.