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MVP is also popular because it has an element of laziness and "get rich quick" attached to it subconsciously. It sounds easy to just build the smallest possible

MVP is also popular because it has an element of laziness and "get rich quick" attached to it subconsciously. It sounds easy to just build the smallest possible thing you can charge money for, then just throwing out a landing page, submitting to Show HN, and you're an instant millionaire right? The reality of building things is there is no such thing as a trivial app. There are edge cases, features you didn't think about, hidden costs, difficulty marketing, personal problems, etc. Even if your app does one incredibly simple thing, there are probably hundreds or thousands of hours of development between that initial hacked together demo you did in a few hours and a profitable product, even a very small one. Everybody wants a shortcut, everybody wants a free lunch. There are a few cases where people have got lucky and hit the startup lottery so to speak, but for the other 99%, it's a lot of work to build something good and to make money doing it, especially something small. If you think that you're different/special and these rules don't apply to you, then you're probably in the 80% of people who believe they have above average intelligence/skill/beauty/whatever. MVP does not mean easy.

rmoriz 13y ago
MVP is about risk reduction. If your MVP fails because you didn't hit the right spot, it's a success: You saved a lot of time and money and can look for better opportunities.
- emn13 13y ago
  I don't think it's easy to distinguish an MVP that failed because there was too much usability friction that discouraged usage from an MVP that didn't hit the right spot. If you get people saying - hey cool! - and then not returning, is your product simply unfinished/unusable, or is it a neat idea that's just not practical?
  - rmoriz 13y ago
    A good presentation does improve sales but imho the value is more important. E.g. if it solves a problem and looks like crap, it's a good enough MVP. A business is not sustainable because of its design, UX or fancy code but because of its value to the customer. A good UX/design/fancy new technology increases the conversion, user experience and what not but it's usually not the key criteria if a business fails or not. We all see the fancy bleeding edge presentations of successful ventures today but we also forgot or never saw the initial MVP that evaluated the idea/customer and served as a foundation for everything later on.

rmoriz 13y ago

MVP is about risk reduction. If your MVP fails because you didn't hit the right spot, it's a success: You saved a lot of time and money and can look for better opportunities.

emn13 13y ago
I don't think it's easy to distinguish an MVP that failed because there was too much usability friction that discouraged usage from an MVP that didn't hit the right spot. If you get people saying - hey cool! - and then not returning, is your product simply unfinished/unusable, or is it a neat idea that's just not practical?
- rmoriz 13y ago
  A good presentation does improve sales but imho the value is more important. E.g. if it solves a problem and looks like crap, it's a good enough MVP. A business is not sustainable because of its design, UX or fancy code but because of its value to the customer. A good UX/design/fancy new technology increases the conversion, user experience and what not but it's usually not the key criteria if a business fails or not. We all see the fancy bleeding edge presentations of successful ventures today but we also forgot or never saw the initial MVP that evaluated the idea/customer and served as a foundation for everything later on.