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I think the key thing people are forgetting is the V in MVP. It has to be viable. I keep seeing people building minimal products, but nothing that's viable. It

by timdorr 15y ago

I think the key thing people are forgetting is the V in MVP. It has to be viable. I keep seeing people building minimal products, but nothing that's viable. It's also a factor of people spreading themselves too thin. You don't have to do a dozen features and make them all minimal. Do the 2 or 3 that are core to the application and make them full-featured. Who knows? That might be all you need.

jasonlotito 15y ago
Yup. If I can't use your product for what it's meant to do, then is it really a minimum viable product? We already have another term for software that doesn't yet exist: vaporware. What I hate most are the landing pages setup to gauge interest. Usually they have a name like: "Flrghx.ly: social meets socal" Which, of course, tells me everything. Throw in a few logos, like TechCrunch, Memefest, Facepalm, and CNN, and a few quotes from JS from SF, California on how he "Finally can socialize his socal social-mates using Flrghx on his iPhone." And then you have the "Hey give us your email! We won't spam you, we promise, we hate spam! But after 7 months of not hearing from us, we'll notify you of our launch, and then we'll subscribe you to our newsletter, and then send you updates that include notifications from our sponsors. But no spam!" Oh, and if I retween a tweet, I'll increase my chances to get into beta. If I post to my Facebook, then it doubles that increase!. And every friend that gives an email increases my chances! OMG! It's like a beta-pyramid scheme. Next they'll be pitching me Aetna.
- tptacek 15y ago
  The problem with Flrghx.ly is not that it isn't fleshed out and it's not that it isn't polished. It's that it's not likely to be a viable business. Plenty of businesses have bootstrapped to customers with nothing but vapor. I've been on (extremely good) teams that got their ass handed to them in version 3.0 by vapor pitches. These are really orthogonal issues. How complete your product is, how polished it is, how few bugs it have, these things usually have less of an impact on your "viability" than nerds think it does (unless you're serving nerds, graphic designers, or competing with Twitter).
freejack 15y ago
Yeah, that and "don't release shit". It doesn't matter how well it conforms to the definition of MVP, if its crap, it won't matter. A proof-of-concept can be absolute crap - i.e. cardboard, whiteboard, whatever... I don't think MVP can. An MVP needs its own legs, the ability to carry its own momentum and without that, simply can't survive.

by timdorr 15y ago

jasonlotito 15y ago

Yup. If I can't use your product for what it's meant to do, then is it really a minimum viable product? We already have another term for software that doesn't yet exist: vaporware. What I hate most are the landing pages setup to gauge interest. Usually they have a name like: "Flrghx.ly: social meets socal" Which, of course, tells me everything. Throw in a few logos, like TechCrunch, Memefest, Facepalm, and CNN, and a few quotes from JS from SF, California on how he "Finally can socialize his socal social-mates using Flrghx on his iPhone." And then you have the "Hey give us your email! We won't spam you, we promise, we hate spam! But after 7 months of not hearing from us, we'll notify you of our launch, and then we'll subscribe you to our newsletter, and then send you updates that include notifications from our sponsors. But no spam!" Oh, and if I retween a tweet, I'll increase my chances to get into beta. If I post to my Facebook, then it doubles that increase!. And every friend that gives an email increases my chances! OMG! It's like a beta-pyramid scheme. Next they'll be pitching me Aetna.

tptacek 15y ago
The problem with Flrghx.ly is not that it isn't fleshed out and it's not that it isn't polished. It's that it's not likely to be a viable business. Plenty of businesses have bootstrapped to customers with nothing but vapor. I've been on (extremely good) teams that got their ass handed to them in version 3.0 by vapor pitches. These are really orthogonal issues. How complete your product is, how polished it is, how few bugs it have, these things usually have less of an impact on your "viability" than nerds think it does (unless you're serving nerds, graphic designers, or competing with Twitter).

freejack 15y ago

Yeah, that and "don't release shit". It doesn't matter how well it conforms to the definition of MVP, if its crap, it won't matter. A proof-of-concept can be absolute crap - i.e. cardboard, whiteboard, whatever... I don't think MVP can. An MVP needs its own legs, the ability to carry its own momentum and without that, simply can't survive.