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An MVP actually offers crude but working versions of the features you're evaluating. A page offering something that doesn't exist at all is not any kind of prod
by prodigal_erik 15y ago
An MVP actually offers crude but working versions of the features you're evaluating. A page offering something that doesn't exist at all is not any kind of product, merely false advertising that can only tell you what people think they might want without having tried it. It also poisons your reputation among people like me who care about an efficient market that isn't filled with chaff.
- derefr 15y agoYou missed the words "at scale." An MVP is when you offer a service X, but only build the capacity to handle, e.g., one customer, until you have 2+ customers. Sometimes this is done by not building anything at all, but rather by manually creating what the service would create for the person. The idea is that you only invest in automating/scaling/tooling up when you actually determine that there is demand, rather than building something for no reason. It's sort of like TDD: you have a facade (your storefront) that presents a finished product, and have customers make requests through it—then your business does the simplest thing that could possibly work to satisfy each request, only adding code/equipment/people/etc. when a request can't possibly be satisfied without it. In the case of the article, an actual MVB (as done by someone who doesn't already own event-staging equipment) would be to put up the page, and then only rent the equipment needed if-and-when people actually set up an event.
- prodigal_erik 15y agoThank you. I did assume "put up a page offering X" was advocating a dry test and you needn't be prepared to offer some kind of X prototype.