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You're focusing on the wrong term with your thoughts. It should be 'minimum' part that is in question here. If you're building a new GPS service and need actual

by tzaman 14y ago

You're focusing on the wrong term with your thoughts. It should be 'minimum' part that is in question here. If you're building a new GPS service and need actual satellite development and launch, then minimum may be millions of $. MVP is not really a product, it's a customer discovery process. If you have that in mind, it becomes much clearer. We spent over 3 months in development plus 10k in expenses for http://beta.carmivore.com http://beta.carmivore.com and we're currently in beta testing. Luckily, we went for minimum and early adopters already gave some valuable feedback.

mgl 14y ago
What is Carmivore? This Dino looks friendly ;)
stevoyoung 14y ago
I agree with this. I think a better way of thinking about MVP is by calling your V1 a "minimal compelling product". Your first version really needs to be minimally compelling so you get good usage which leads to good feedback, like you did. It's really a hard thing to decide but it's very important. Go to minimal and you will fail prematurely - too much and you will never launch. More thoughts here: http://www.stevoyoung.com/post/32933259890/forget-your-mvp-build-a-mcp http://www.stevoyoung.com/post/32933259890/forget-your-mvp-b...
- wpietri 14y ago
  The nice thing about failing too small is that you have plenty more chances to get it right. The trick is to do your small failures with small audiences and with minimal brand impact.
kris_lander 14y ago
Exactly. I prefer to focus on what people like Steve Blank have said about creating a start up company. Better to think about how you are investing your time and resources in terms of customer discovery/validation (searching for a viable business model) and then customer creation/company building (executing on the business model). A lot of people conflate the two when thinking about the purpose of an "MVP" or just plain experiments to test assumptions - and as the poster is discovering there are consequences when you do.

by tzaman 14y ago

mgl 14y ago

What is Carmivore? This Dino looks friendly ;)

stevoyoung 14y ago

I agree with this. I think a better way of thinking about MVP is by calling your V1 a "minimal compelling product". Your first version really needs to be minimally compelling so you get good usage which leads to good feedback, like you did. It's really a hard thing to decide but it's very important. Go to minimal and you will fail prematurely - too much and you will never launch. More thoughts here: http://www.stevoyoung.com/post/32933259890/forget-your-mvp-build-a-mcp http://www.stevoyoung.com/post/32933259890/forget-your-mvp-b...

wpietri 14y ago
The nice thing about failing too small is that you have plenty more chances to get it right. The trick is to do your small failures with small audiences and with minimal brand impact.

kris_lander 14y ago

Exactly. I prefer to focus on what people like Steve Blank have said about creating a start up company. Better to think about how you are investing your time and resources in terms of customer discovery/validation (searching for a viable business model) and then customer creation/company building (executing on the business model). A lot of people conflate the two when thinking about the purpose of an "MVP" or just plain experiments to test assumptions - and as the poster is discovering there are consequences when you do.