The Minimum Viable Product Dissected | Hacker News Reader

The Minimum Viable Product Dissected

w2lessons.com

3 points_pius2 comments

I'm not sure that what is described is an MVP at all. It's more of an A/B testing page. What's missing is a V and a P. Seems all they say is to strip everything out (since you'll toss it anyway) create a few mock-ups, and then put that on the web with a lead capture system. There is nothing viable about it and there is certainly no product. Just minimum.

Here's why I think that is going too far: Who wants to sign up for a screenshot that does nothing, shows not much, and is basically just a bunch of copy and hype? Unless TC or Mashable, or some other BIG site goes and promotes it few if any will actually divulge their info.

What I would suggest is at least an interactive prototype (if only a demo with pre-populated data). They use the example of Twitter... but who would have given their info to Twitter without seeing it in action first? And then, I wager, only the very earliest of adopters would.

The world is full of once over-hyped empty promises. Without a V and a P I think you're wasting your (and everyone else's) time.

The fact is that you are testing for viability with an MVP. It is not a product but rather an experiment. You are falling into the trap that most people fall into in thinking it is a product when it isn't. The goal is to validate if there is a demand for your solution, not to create "the product". If you create a whole product then you've defeated the purpose of the lean startup. Look at About.me, they had nothing more than a landing page and got thousands of Beta registrations. The fact is that this approach does work. If the value proposition of the product is attractive to your visitor and solves a large problem of theirs. By creating this basic demonstration to test your assumption you are in fact checking if you would be wasting yours and everyone elses time by building it, that is the underlying premise behind the lean startup.

Also, the post does actually suggest a static prototype as one of the options.

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