In product development, the minimum viable product (MVP) is the product with the highest return on investment versus risk. An MVP has just those core features that allow the product to be deployed, so that you can obtain the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. We'll discuss how to get the right features for your MVP, how to deploy the MVP, and how to learn from your early customer feedback.

1. Got Startup Meetup July 23, 2015
How to Create and Deploy an Effective
Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

2. Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
In product development, a minimum viable product (MVP) is
the product with the highest return on investment versus risk
The term is associated with Customer Development (Steve
Blank) and Lean Startup (Eric Ries) methodologies

3. Steve Blank – Customer Development
SiliconValley serial entrepreneur (Zilog, MIPS, Convergent,
E.piphany…)
Developed Customer Development methodology
Scientific approach to be applied by startups and
entrepreneurs to improve their product success by better
understanding their customers
Basic concept is a balanced relationship between developing a
product and understanding the customer

4. Eric Ries – Lean Startup
Was a student and then a collaborator of Blank
Popularized the Lean Startup methodologies for developing
businesses and processes of which Customer Development is
a key component
Shorten product development cycles by
Business-hypothesis-driven experimentation
Iterative product releases
Validated learning

5. The Minimum Viable Product
Make a version of a new product which allows your team to
collect the maximum amount of validated learning about
customers with the least effort
The goal is to test fundamental business hypotheses (“leap of
faith assumptions”) and to help entrepreneurs begin the
learning process as soon as possible

6. WEBVAN – AN UNFORTUNATE EXAMPLE OF
UNTESTED BUSINESS HYPOTHESIS
Online “credit and delivery” grocery service founded in 1996
Venture capitalists invested more than $396 million in
Webvan
Built infrastructure (including warehouses, fleets of delivery
trucks, etc.) to service 10 US markets (SF, Dallas, Los
Angels, Chicago…)
Raised $375 million in an IPO in 1999
Bankrupt by 2001

7. ZAPPOS – A SUCCESSFUL EXAMPLE OF TESTING A
BUSINESS HYPOTHESIS WITH A MVP
Zappos founder Nick Swinmurn wanted to test the
hypothesis that customers were ready and willing to buy
shoes online
Did not initially build a fully functional ecommerce website,
create a large database of footwear, or create inventory to
test the hypothesis
Instead, Swinmurn approached local shoe stores, took
pictures of their inventory, posted the pictures online, bought
them shoes from the stores at full price, and shipped them to
the customers to validate the hypothesis
Then he built Zappos into a multi-billion dollar business

8. Minimal + Viable

9. The Virtuous Cycle

10. A few words from Steve Blank

11. MPV to Product

12. Why you need an MVP
You shouldn’t sell products that you can build
You should build products that you can sell
An MVP
Tests product viability
Tests assumptions
Tests the market
Tests product usability
Obtains user feedback re improvements

13. Everything is an experiment
Internal debates do not generate facts
Effective experiments generate facts
You have to “get out of the building” to test your hypotheses
as to what will sell

14. Pre-MVP (Pretotypes)
Proposals – documents describing a solution
Smoke tests – e.g.a landing page to test curiosity and interest
or buyingAdWords
Mockup demos

15. MVPs
An early version with minimal feature set that can be sold to
early adopters
Crowdfunding is a viable sales channel for an MVP
Note
A MVP isn’t a bad version of a final product
A MVP is a viable product that is attractive to at least early
adopters

16. Pretotype Examples
In person interview/proposal
Smoke test: Landing page and AdWords
Explainer videos
Mockups

17. Purpose of Pretotypes
Test a product hypothesis with minimal resources
Accelerate learning
Reduce wasted engineering hours
Get the product to early customers as soon as possible

18. Examples of Pretotypes
A large poster of aTV screen to simulate a flat screenTV that
can hang on a wall
A PowerPoint mockup of a website
An explainer video
A simulated mobile application
Landing pages

19. Examples of MVPs
Concierge – “Food on theTable”
Wizard of Oz – Zappos & Groupon
Old School – GoPro
Crowd Funding – Pebble
ExplainerVideo –Thalmic Lab

20. MVP: Food on the Table (Concierge)
Customized menus for meals at home
Signed up first customer by describing the benefits and
getting a subscription fee
Provided the recipe service personally (like a personal
concierge)
Learned from their customer
Automated later based upon that learning

21. MVP: Groupon (Wizard of Oz)
Skinned aWordpress blog to say Groupon and posted daily
If customer interested in a product, they were invited to
email a request
Used Filemaker to create PDF coupons and emailed back
Effectively validated the demand for its service without
developing an automated system

22. MVP: GoPro (Old Tech)
First GoPro cameras used 35mm film
Were strapped to the user’s wrist

23. MVP: Pebble - Crowdfunding
Kickstarter campaign
Raised over $10M
Predated that AppleWatch

24. MVP: Thalmic Lab (Explainer Video)
Created aYouTube video
Obtained 10,000 pre-orders ($1.5M) in first 48 hours

25. Try Tech-savvy Early Adopters
Ability – they “get it” without hand-holding
Opportunity – they use technology frequently during the day
Feedback – they’ll give you exhaustive, ongoing feedback
Co-creation – they’ll help you bring key social systems to life
Evangelism – they’ll spread the word when it is time to scale