Minimum Desirable Product<br />Customer Development
for the“Winner Take All” Consumer Web<br />

My target audience<br />Mass market
consumer internet startups<br />Daily usage, but low value interactions<br />Ad-supported, indirect monetization models<br />First to 100M uniques/month wins<br />

Executing the “Viability-First” strategy<br />Get
a lot of users through viral channels<br />Create a Minimum Viable Product<br />Maximize user acquisition and revenue/user<br />Iterate to a great product experience (?)<br />Can this ever lead to a high engagement product with sustainable viral growth?<br />

Scenarios that made me think<br
/>High-growth social network that’s profitable but has terrible user retention<br />Dating site with lots of subscribers, but no one can find the dates they were promised<br />Photo-sharing site with 100M+ uniques/month organic growth, but unprofitable<br />

Am I testing the right
thing with a Minimum Viable Product?<br />

A different approach:Minimum Desirable Product<br
/>

IDEO design “lenses”<br />

Test the riskiest thing first<br
/>Depending on your business:<br />Minimum Viable Product<br /> Distribution, Revenue, Business model<br />Minimum Feasible Product<br /> Transistors/inch, Power usage, Cures cancer<br />Minimum Desirable Product<br /> Engagement, Sustainable growth, Love <3<br />

Desirable but not viable (for
years!)<br />

The “Desirability-First” strategy<br />Understand user
goals<br />Create a Minimum Desirable Product<br />Listen to users and maximize Love <3<br />Iterate to a great product experience<br />It still needs to be viable and feasible, so filter your ideas through that!<br />

How to build an MDP<br
/>Understand the target user and their goals<br />Identify 2-3 core scenarios<br />Make it 1-4 main pages<br />Tech demo in <2 weeks, MDP in 4-6 weeks<br />Are you using it every day?<br />Will 10 people to use it every day? 100?<br />

If you get stuck,add more
features right?(Or, once you have an MDP,add more features right?)<br />

Min versus Max Desirability<br />Maximum
desirability != More features<br />They probably have less features<br />Focus on the “right” scenarios<br />Compelling and refined consumer value<br />Boiling down the minimal featureset takes more time, not less! (Good design is hard)<br />

“In many ways, it's the
things that are not there that we are most proud of” –JonyIve on the iPad<br />

examples and resources<br />

The Inmates are Running the
Asylum by Alan Cooper<br />The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelly<br />Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge<br />Artful Making by Robert Austin / Devin Lee<br />The Design of Business by Roger Martin<br />Human Centered Design Toolkit by IDEOhttp://bit.ly/8hyn2r<br />

Andrew Chen<br />http://andrewchenblog.com<br />voodoo@gmail.com<br />