5 ms·

> Distribution before product I don't like this new startup trend[1][2], nor do I think it actually works. Literally all of those examples are the opposite of

by dvt 6y ago

> Distribution before product I don't like this new startup trend[1][2], nor do I think it actually works. Literally all of those examples are the opposite of what the blog post is claiming. They did have a product: Hotmail had the service built out, Eventbrite had the service built out, and there was a Dropbox before you could refer your friends to it. There are examples of what the author is claiming, but most are gimmicky Kickstarter-style (and often derivative) products. I mean, think about Dropbox or Slack or Instagram: how could you possibly sell (or even validate the idea of) those products without actually giving some sort of demo? Without people actually using that thing? It might work for something like the product in the post (people understand what "video chat" is), but I don't really see it working for any kind of particularly novel or value-generating product. Followup: grabbed a coffee, and this post got a bit of attention. To be clear, I think that an MVP should be just that: a minimum viable product. By definition, you shouldn't be able to go leaner. I also think that sometimes people conflate "fake it 'til you make it" with PG's "do things that don't scale" -- these two are not the same. [1] https://tommorkes.com/lean-launch-how-to-sell-an-idea-before-you-build-it/ https://tommorkes.com/lean-launch-how-to-sell-an-idea-before... [2] https://hbr.org/2013/12/sell-your-product-before-it-exists https://hbr.org/2013/12/sell-your-product-before-it-exists

TuringNYC 6y ago
I think the idea is you do give a demo, just that you dont go crazy engineering-wise to implement NASCAR login, kubernetes scale-out and all sorts of stuff before you've tested the market for interest. It is basically taking the idea of MVP down a notch to BVP (barely viable product). I've never done this, but it makes sense. Why spend the engineering effort to go from Demo --> BVP --> MVP when you can just do the first jump and test the idea. Everything is on a spectrum and -- given the vast graveyard of random ideas engineers build as side projects -- we should figure out a better way to drive better yield.
- thelastwave 6y ago
  What is NASCAR login?
  - TuringNYC 6y ago
    A NASCAR login is a stack of login options (Login with Apple, Login with Google, Login with Facebook, Login with Twitter, Login with Github...) where you end up having so many stacked logos that it starts to look like a NASCAR racecar (because they have tons of logos on them.) https://nascar.nbcsports.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2020/01/GettyImages-1160648250-e1578061949343.jpg https://nascar.nbcsports.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2020... Google Identity reference to NASCAR Login: https://developers.google.com/identity/toolkit/images/federated_login_mobile_nascar.png https://developers.google.com/identity/toolkit/images/federa... NASCAR logins are particularly great (easy entry to convert interested users) and at the same time having a huge number of super-ugly edge cases: 1. If you log in with john.q.doe@gmail.com but originally had registered your gmail as johnqdoe, then your login automatically changes to the non-dot form. 2. If you have already registered via email on john.q.doe@gmail.com, then you cannot login-with-Google in the above case, as both accounts are separate and distinct in the host system. 3. If you have two accounts under your school and work account, but log-in-with-Facebook, and Facebook has both your emails, it gets confused. 4. There are cases where you simply cannot log in due to the network of conflicts across the identity services. ...and yet this is also awesome because you get to convert a registered user ASAP in 95% of the cases.
  - hamburglar 6y ago
    A login page that has a million logos on it (login with facebook, login with google, etc)
- smarx007 6y ago
  Just today Redpanda hit HN front page https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25075739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25075739 and I cannot see how would you give a demo of such a system without having such a system developed in the first place. At the very least, the whole of HN would laugh at such a salesman trick. I do think there is a spectrum of fake-it-before-you-make-it ability for each idea. For some like Instagram is close to 100% and for things like Redpanda it's close to zero.
- macNchz 6y ago
  Yes I think you described this approach well. I've worked on a bunch of things built this way... as an overall approach it will certainly minimize the chance that you waste time building something totally un-sellable. On the other hand, I've seen organizations using this "BVP" approach for absolutely everything they build, which I've come to view as a sort of product development antipattern, reflecting some lack of ambition/conviction/vision at the top. It's like the polar opposite of a moonshot: building things in such tiny increments that you can only ever achieve a local maxima, because the higher summit requires a bigger leap.
  - TuringNYC 6y ago
    >> reflecting some lack of ambition/conviction/vision at the top Sure, but my assumption would be -- if you suddenly get registrations, signups, or even conditional trial accounts, great! Now I have some validation, and I'd jump in immediately and start building out the product fully. ...then, if I get even more engagement, even greater! Now I can start planning some scale-out.
- detaro 6y ago
  What's the definition of MVP then?!
  - jbay808 6y ago
    Indeed! M means minimum! If anything, the step below an MVP should be called a NYVP ("Not-Yet Viable Product"), which should hopefully remind eager sales folks that it might be ready to demo but not ready to sell.
    - unishark 6y ago
      vaporware
smarx007 6y ago
I think I understand both viewpoints: it is indeed not feasible to fake it before you make it in case of Dropbox. However, if you are offering automated reports once a week, there is no problem putting together an HTML template, some excel sheet and an email script where a person does the work for a few pilot customers. So I think when you mentioned "particularly novel or value-generating product" you meant that the idea scores close to 0 on a "fake it before you make it" scale? Is there even such a scale? Barrier of entry is closest I can think of.
timjones 6y ago
I'm only advocating for reducing uncertainty around distribution before building; not eliminating it entirely. It's important to at least have a strong growth hypothesis that you've validated to some degree. That's all I have right now - hypotheses.
- dvt 6y ago
  I think this is a fair point, and maybe I was too critical. There's been a trend of "fake it 'til you make it" lately, which I think really appeals to non-engineer types. Engineers have the opposite problem: building too much before anything is validated.
satvikpendem 6y ago
Funny you mention Dropbox because they did exactly what you say not to do, provide a video demo that doesn't actually work, it just looks like it's working [0]. Their Show HN thread has more details [1]. In general though, you definitely should work on figuring out if customers want your product without building it if at all possible, and most times it is possible. I run a SaaS that's a project management tool (todo list + calendar, basically, at https://getartemis.app https://getartemis.app) and the main page is simply a video demo that I made with Figma and an animation tool called Principle. People signed up and it works great for showing users what they'd be getting in the future. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
- dvt 6y ago
  > ...provide a video demo that doesn't actually work, it just looks like it's working This is not true, the video used a few clever techniques (cutting/editing) to make it seem snappier and more responsive, but Dropbox was very much a real (albeit beta and buggy) product when the video was made.
  - satvikpendem 6y ago
    That is true, the founder did have an alpha version working by the time they did the Show HN, but still, if he had made the video without having anything technically made (but just by visual effects), would it still have been less effective? I doubt it, people know what they want and don't want when watching the video, and it would have been clear to the founder that people wanted it and he could've started building it after people expressed their demand. So in the end, even if he hadn't made the full product, Dropbox would still be where it is today.
- maxekman 6y ago
  It was really inspiring and grounding to see a “Show HN” thread with Dropbox, pre-fame. Thanks!
  - 6y ago
baxtr 6y ago
I think the problem is the with the name. An MVP is most often not a product, but a prototype that you use to test some hypothesis. That’s it. It you are lucky and validate them, great. Trash the Prototype and build the real product.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  What are you talking about? Almost all startups ship the prototype - and they have no choice, since there's no calendar time for a do-over, and any managers/investors aren't going to green-light wasting time on a re-write. Joel Spolsky has a related blog post on this that's good for discussion, though I don't exactly agree with him if it's a huge company: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...
drchiu 6y ago
I think selling a product that doesn't yet exist may work without an MVP, especially if it's a completely novel idea where none exists. We launched recently (and got paid customers on day 1, no mailing list, no large # of followers, no marketing spend) in a relatively established market niche and didn't run into the problems of finding customers, because customers were already looking for that solution and liked what they saw. We also needed to build out the whole product before the first revenue dollar. I think strategies differ depending on: - How new the market is for that particular product - How big of a risk is it to adopt your product vs alternatives - How polished it looks (inverse relationship to how many solutions already exist) In some cases, you may need a much more polished MVP to get people to bring out their credit cards. If your product is the only one of its kind (and is in high demand), the UI is less important in v1.
ignoramous 6y ago
I think a lot of folks get confused between various MxPs (where x = [remarkable, viable, loveable, marketable/sellable]), I know we did, and thought we must be doing something horribly wrong. This blog post captures some of the differences: https://archive.is/wip/tnm2D https://archive.is/wip/tnm2D (skip to conclusion). This one elaborates what an MLP is: https://medium.com/the-happy-startup-school/beyond-mvp-10-steps-to-make-your-product-minimum-loveable-51800164ae0c https://medium.com/the-happy-startup-school/beyond-mvp-10-st...

by dvt 6y ago

TuringNYC 6y ago

I think the idea is you do give a demo, just that you dont go crazy engineering-wise to implement NASCAR login, kubernetes scale-out and all sorts of stuff before you've tested the market for interest. It is basically taking the idea of MVP down a notch to BVP (barely viable product). I've never done this, but it makes sense. Why spend the engineering effort to go from Demo --> BVP --> MVP when you can just do the first jump and test the idea. Everything is on a spectrum and -- given the vast graveyard of random ideas engineers build as side projects -- we should figure out a better way to drive better yield.

thelastwave 6y ago
What is NASCAR login?
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  A NASCAR login is a stack of login options (Login with Apple, Login with Google, Login with Facebook, Login with Twitter, Login with Github...) where you end up having so many stacked logos that it starts to look like a NASCAR racecar (because they have tons of logos on them.) https://nascar.nbcsports.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2020/01/GettyImages-1160648250-e1578061949343.jpg https://nascar.nbcsports.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2020... Google Identity reference to NASCAR Login: https://developers.google.com/identity/toolkit/images/federated_login_mobile_nascar.png https://developers.google.com/identity/toolkit/images/federa... NASCAR logins are particularly great (easy entry to convert interested users) and at the same time having a huge number of super-ugly edge cases: 1. If you log in with john.q.doe@gmail.com but originally had registered your gmail as johnqdoe, then your login automatically changes to the non-dot form. 2. If you have already registered via email on john.q.doe@gmail.com, then you cannot login-with-Google in the above case, as both accounts are separate and distinct in the host system. 3. If you have two accounts under your school and work account, but log-in-with-Facebook, and Facebook has both your emails, it gets confused. 4. There are cases where you simply cannot log in due to the network of conflicts across the identity services. ...and yet this is also awesome because you get to convert a registered user ASAP in 95% of the cases.
- hamburglar 6y ago
  A login page that has a million logos on it (login with facebook, login with google, etc)
smarx007 6y ago
Just today Redpanda hit HN front page https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25075739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25075739 and I cannot see how would you give a demo of such a system without having such a system developed in the first place. At the very least, the whole of HN would laugh at such a salesman trick. I do think there is a spectrum of fake-it-before-you-make-it ability for each idea. For some like Instagram is close to 100% and for things like Redpanda it's close to zero.
macNchz 6y ago
Yes I think you described this approach well. I've worked on a bunch of things built this way... as an overall approach it will certainly minimize the chance that you waste time building something totally un-sellable. On the other hand, I've seen organizations using this "BVP" approach for absolutely everything they build, which I've come to view as a sort of product development antipattern, reflecting some lack of ambition/conviction/vision at the top. It's like the polar opposite of a moonshot: building things in such tiny increments that you can only ever achieve a local maxima, because the higher summit requires a bigger leap.
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  >> reflecting some lack of ambition/conviction/vision at the top Sure, but my assumption would be -- if you suddenly get registrations, signups, or even conditional trial accounts, great! Now I have some validation, and I'd jump in immediately and start building out the product fully. ...then, if I get even more engagement, even greater! Now I can start planning some scale-out.
detaro 6y ago
What's the definition of MVP then?!
- jbay808 6y ago
  Indeed! M means minimum! If anything, the step below an MVP should be called a NYVP ("Not-Yet Viable Product"), which should hopefully remind eager sales folks that it might be ready to demo but not ready to sell.
  - unishark 6y ago
    vaporware

smarx007 6y ago

I think I understand both viewpoints: it is indeed not feasible to fake it before you make it in case of Dropbox. However, if you are offering automated reports once a week, there is no problem putting together an HTML template, some excel sheet and an email script where a person does the work for a few pilot customers. So I think when you mentioned "particularly novel or value-generating product" you meant that the idea scores close to 0 on a "fake it before you make it" scale? Is there even such a scale? Barrier of entry is closest I can think of.

timjones 6y ago

I'm only advocating for reducing uncertainty around distribution before building; not eliminating it entirely. It's important to at least have a strong growth hypothesis that you've validated to some degree. That's all I have right now - hypotheses.

dvt 6y ago
I think this is a fair point, and maybe I was too critical. There's been a trend of "fake it 'til you make it" lately, which I think really appeals to non-engineer types. Engineers have the opposite problem: building too much before anything is validated.

satvikpendem 6y ago

Funny you mention Dropbox because they did exactly what you say not to do, provide a video demo that doesn't actually work, it just looks like it's working [0]. Their Show HN thread has more details [1]. In general though, you definitely should work on figuring out if customers want your product without building it if at all possible, and most times it is possible. I run a SaaS that's a project management tool (todo list + calendar, basically, at https://getartemis.app https://getartemis.app) and the main page is simply a video demo that I made with Figma and an animation tool called Principle. People signed up and it works great for showing users what they'd be getting in the future. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

dvt 6y ago
> ...provide a video demo that doesn't actually work, it just looks like it's working This is not true, the video used a few clever techniques (cutting/editing) to make it seem snappier and more responsive, but Dropbox was very much a real (albeit beta and buggy) product when the video was made.
- satvikpendem 6y ago
  That is true, the founder did have an alpha version working by the time they did the Show HN, but still, if he had made the video without having anything technically made (but just by visual effects), would it still have been less effective? I doubt it, people know what they want and don't want when watching the video, and it would have been clear to the founder that people wanted it and he could've started building it after people expressed their demand. So in the end, even if he hadn't made the full product, Dropbox would still be where it is today.
maxekman 6y ago
It was really inspiring and grounding to see a “Show HN” thread with Dropbox, pre-fame. Thanks!
- 6y ago

baxtr 6y ago

I think the problem is the with the name. An MVP is most often not a product, but a prototype that you use to test some hypothesis. That’s it. It you are lucky and validate them, great. Trash the Prototype and build the real product.

redis_mlc 6y ago
What are you talking about? Almost all startups ship the prototype - and they have no choice, since there's no calendar time for a do-over, and any managers/investors aren't going to green-light wasting time on a re-write. Joel Spolsky has a related blog post on this that's good for discussion, though I don't exactly agree with him if it's a huge company: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

drchiu 6y ago

I think selling a product that doesn't yet exist may work without an MVP, especially if it's a completely novel idea where none exists. We launched recently (and got paid customers on day 1, no mailing list, no large # of followers, no marketing spend) in a relatively established market niche and didn't run into the problems of finding customers, because customers were already looking for that solution and liked what they saw. We also needed to build out the whole product before the first revenue dollar. I think strategies differ depending on: - How new the market is for that particular product - How big of a risk is it to adopt your product vs alternatives - How polished it looks (inverse relationship to how many solutions already exist) In some cases, you may need a much more polished MVP to get people to bring out their credit cards. If your product is the only one of its kind (and is in high demand), the UI is less important in v1.

ignoramous 6y ago

I think a lot of folks get confused between various MxPs (where x = [remarkable, viable, loveable, marketable/sellable]), I know we did, and thought we must be doing something horribly wrong. This blog post captures some of the differences: https://archive.is/wip/tnm2D https://archive.is/wip/tnm2D (skip to conclusion). This one elaborates what an MLP is: https://medium.com/the-happy-startup-school/beyond-mvp-10-steps-to-make-your-product-minimum-loveable-51800164ae0c https://medium.com/the-happy-startup-school/beyond-mvp-10-st...