MVP is the lynchpin of ‘Product Discovery’ process
In the last article on the Product Discovery, I promised to share a few methods or techniques used in the Product Discovery. Let me begin with one of the most prominent methods to validate if your product discovery is marching towards the right direction i.e. the ‘Minimum Viable Product’. Before we reach an understanding on the MVP, let’s first define what is Product Discovery.
Product Discovery is an iterative process of arriving at a ‘Minimum Viable Product’ to solve customer’s problem that was identified as a result of opportunity analysis.
There is a meticulous opportunity analysis which starts with a hypothesis. The hypothesis is really a statement of belief that there may be an opportunity to solve customer’s problem via a product/solution. You would have observed that I am not fixated on the product, here. Because, the goal is not to create a product but solve the customer’s problem. If in the process, we realize that this is something we as a company should do that will create a ‘Win-Win’ for customer and us both i.e. it will lead to a product. This product should aim to arrive at the Product-Market-EndUser fit (more on this here). By the way, at this stage, you have no prototype, you have nothing, you just have an idea and a bunch of assumptions, as part of your hypothesis. These assumptions could be of different types:
Customer/User Assumptions (Who are the first customers/users who are going to buy/use our product? What are the jobs they need to get done? What is their way-around the problem?)
Problem Assumptions (narrowing down to Problem Statement from symptoms)
Solution Assumptions (What is our key idea?How will we solve their problem, better than others for them?)
Feasibility (Technical and Legal Challenges)
Capability Assumptions (Is this in our Wheelhouse? How are we better?)
Economic Assumptions (Is the target big enough for us to make money? How are we going to make money? How will we actually go to market? Who will we need to partner with?)
Note: all of the above assumptions can’t be validated in the first shot. Hence, we need to focus on what’s most critical to us, as a business. You can achieve the above validation in an iterative process by progressively testing the discovery hypotheses. During this discovery process, it is important to learn fast by building “quick and dirty” prototypes with minimal effort and time. One mantra that I love is KISS (Keep it simple and stupid). You don’t have to have the glorious UI for it but you need to have the proof of the concept. You don’t have to build something that resembles the finished product. So, what is the MVP?
The validation of the riskiest and the most critical assumptions (most likely to go wrong) and thus, the discovery hypotheses is the ‘Minimum Viable Product’.
Ergo, MVP is the lynchpin of the product discovery process without which the discovery process may fall apart. It could be a simple validation of the concept e.g. Let’s travel to the year 1999. It’s the beginning of the new century but it’s still quaint. People are not comfortable with e-Commerce sites, let alone people buying shoes online. Hence, Nick Swinmurn, founder of Zappos, was struggling to get VC funding. To get their attention, what he did was MVP.
He took his camera, went to the mall for physical shoe stores, captured images of the shoes and uploaded them on his website. As soon as, he would receive the online orders of the shoes from his website; he would go back to the mall, buy the pair and ship it to the customer.
As soon as, he gathered enough traction; he got the funding. And the rest, as they say, is history.
So, the most critical assumption in the above case was — Whether people would buy shoes online, without ever getting to see and try them. For testing this hypothesis, Swinmurn neither built an ecommerce website with a huge product catalog nor build a supply chain network. Many entrepreneurs do this today, with their kickstarter campaigns.
While at it — I should, also, bust some myths around the term — MVP. As a reader, you might have guessed the theme of this article, with the image. If not, as Eminem would say ‘Will the real slim (err. MVP) please stand-up?’. Therefore, the MVP is
- Not about building a smaller or cheaper version of your final product
- Not, the first iteration of your product development sprint-athon
- Not, a good version 1.0 (leads to bloated prototype)
- Not just, a simplest possible prototype (without critical assumptions)
- Not, a MLP Minimum Lovable Product (another marketed term)
- Not, ETP — Earliest Testable Product (vague on what needs to be tested)
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
End Notes: Based on the above, you can imagine that a lot of it is not directly revenue earning for your organization (Cost Centre v/s Profit Centre) As you would have imagined, that the validation of the hypotheses via MVP creation, if not done correctly, can be resource intensive. It also has long term implications for the direction, your product is pursuing. You might be lost in a rabbit hole until you strike at your Product-Market-EndUser fit.
The subsequent article on MVP builds on: how is it different in start-ups v/s mature organizations.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
About me: Seasoned Product Manager / Student working at the intersection of business growth, technical knowledge and design principles with 11+ years of experience of working in Tech Industry enabling ‘Digital Transformation and Organization Change’. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Reference: Product Management’s Sacred Seven
