Airbnb, Dropbox and LinkedIn. All of them are amazing platforms with a huge number of users. Yet they did not start in the same form as we know them now. There are countless experiments and continuous learning from them that preceded this. The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a fundamental concept in these experiments. 95 percent of newly launched products fail. Let that sink in. 95 percent of newly launched products fail. Products developed by large companies with big budgets, the best minds, the latest technologies and best patents. That is not the issue. But what is? Many companies wait too long before launching a product. The customer will only be faced with the product when in the eyes of the creator it is 'finished'. Take it or leave it. And in 95 percent of the cases, they leave it. Budget spent, project failed.
If you are going to fail, fail fast.
It is okay if an MVP fails
A Minimum Viable Product is an experiment aimed at testing or validation of assumptions about what customers want. You'll first test the assumptions that are most dangerous to the success of your project. The MVP doesn’t need to be be a product, it is the essence of the product that matters. Design it in the manner that is most suitable to get it into the hands and minds of customers. Creating them will be based on minimum cost and effort, maximum validated customer insights goal. Customers do not like it? Same assumption, new MVP. Is it what customers want? Next assumption, new experiment!
They led the way
In the startup world the MVP approach is widely used. Unicorns such as Airbnb, Dropbox and LinkedIn launched MVPs to test if their value proposition was correct. For this, they used a variety forms. To help you kickstart making your own MVP, you can read the most important examples here.
Airbnb
Airbnb launched a website with only a functional front end. The user could not do anything with it, the makers did. Filled with just a few pictures of a random apartment they tested whether there was interest in renting other people's rooms instead of booking a hotel.
Dropbox
Dropbox began with only a short video showing the product operation explained it wanted to launch its creators. The film was a huge success and Dropbox gained valuable feedback that enabled them to validate its core assumptions.
Groupon
Groupon began as a platform to bring people together, to achieve things which they alone could not. Over time they began to set up daily deals through a mailing, the success of which we know Groupon for today. They could have chosen to use a costly automated system from day one. At the time, however, they did not know the great success that Groupon would become. They decided to test their value proposition every day by manually sending an email. Laborious, but dirt cheap. The opposite of an expensive computer system. This has obviously been implemented now, but only when Groupon knew that it would not cost them their homes.
The creators of Twitter originally started at a podcasting station called Odeo. The monthly SMS charges under his staff were so high that they were looking for an alternative. They launched 'twttr', a little tool that was designed by the staff inside of the company. With the feedback from staff and after having launched numerous MVPs, the result was Twitter as we know it now.
Spotify
The MVP of Spotify was a landing page to which they permitted users. This helped to see what features Spotify were valuable and which are not. It not only helped them to improve their value proposition, but also to create momentum they needed to enter the US market. Spotify was too big to ignore, which helped them overcome licensing issues in the music industry.
Uber
Uber started offering taxi rides in luxury cars and limousines. In 2010 Uber conducted an experiment on a small sample group in San Francisco. It was initially focused on contacting iPhone users with taxi drivers through an app. Later it experimented with features like car hailing and fare splitting. The experiments resulted in feedback which they developed further and served as a base for future funding. Uber attracted more and more drivers and users. The full-scale launch of Uber was a fact.
Submitted December 05, 2016 at 01:57PM by scumbaggrandparent http://ift.tt/2h50cLu via TikTokTikk
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