2015-03-21
Most companies are obsessed with the concept of minimum viable products (MVP) these days.
Having spent the past three years entrenched in the Lean Startup world, I have an extremely biased perspective. There was a period of time I treated certain books as gospel and became dismissive of alternative views. However, there were a handful of times I was unable to defend these principles.
Joshua Porter’s piece on MVP’s recently came up. It refers to Apple’s design culture, and how they do not conform to the concept of MVP’s — they only release when something is “magical” [1]. The most interesting quote from the culture article was:
If you’re launching something in a space where there are a lot of people trying to do something similar–for example, a consumer product–then the bar for MVP should be ridiculously high.
This was particularly impactful on me as it embodied a concept I had yet to put my finger on. The concept of levels.
The term “viable” is frequently misunderstood in the context of an MVP. It is an extremely flexible word, which is precisely why it is so applicable when it comes to product development.
Viability is like art, it depends on who is looking at it.
When you are pushing the boundaries of science and technology, or anything else that creates a new market, the level of MVP you must achieve is low. Customers don’t know what they want. Most can’t see or explain the solution. The only job of your MVP at this stage is to validate a problem exists.
When you enter an existing market, the level naturally rises. And the more crowded it is, the higher it goes. I experience this every time I see a new productivity app. There are so many now, with such great features, you cannot release something without a certain level already achieved [2].
This concept is easily applied to new startups building products for the first time, or companies refining existing products. I plan to reference this concept in the future, and hope it helps others who have struggled with MVP’s in mature markets.
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[1] The other advantage Apple has is an enormous pool of internal resources to leverage for testing and feedback. The Apple workforce is probably a surprisingly accurate representation of their target customers. Therefore, they are able to test rather thoroughly without “releasing” anything to the public, and waiting for it to be truly magical.
[2] The exception is if you approach this category from the side, instead of head on. If you can do something truly unique that is not meant to replace an existing workflow, but support it, you may have lower expectations.