MVP - your stories
Discussion
I noted this term on here recently. I'm sure many people on here think about starting their own business and this concept might help a few with ideas about what they need to start, or more precisely how little they need to start and test their idea.
So, what were your MVP stories and examples?
(PS MVP - Minimum Viable Product - the least you need to do/spend to test your business idea)
So, what were your MVP stories and examples?
(PS MVP - Minimum Viable Product - the least you need to do/spend to test your business idea)
I made a mvp by accident, I built a basic website for a business I was brainstorming, but then was offered a job, and sacked the website off forgot about it. I received the odd email enquiry, which piqued my interest. I had a voucher for 50 quid of free Adwords, so I set up a campaign to spend it all in 24 hours and got enough information that I could extrapolate demand. The rest is history, I ran the business at work for a little while, subcontracting everything, until revenue matched my salary then quit. Little by little, I reduced the subcontracting until the business was almost entirely in house. I've since reversed this to a happy medium with a mix of PAYE for sales and subcontracting for operations, and hope to retire off the proceeds in the not too distant future...
Edited by LimJim on Friday 11th December 12:47
About 65k. And that didn't include the time of the 2 founders time in specification, design and project / scrum management.
Client integration is around 150k per site.
We self funded the MVP before going to investors, as it added a tangible product they could view before parting with their hard earned. We have given away considerably less equity than we first thought and the MVP helps justify the valuation. If we raise more in the future, we do it a higher valuations so reduce our dilution.
Client integration is around 150k per site.
We self funded the MVP before going to investors, as it added a tangible product they could view before parting with their hard earned. We have given away considerably less equity than we first thought and the MVP helps justify the valuation. If we raise more in the future, we do it a higher valuations so reduce our dilution.
How little... I may be a candidate for that contest. I was pretty damn sure my ideas would work, so no research needed. Marketing was the key.
Business 1 was pre-internet and cost c.£1K to start (for a phone/fax machine and stationery), then mostly badgering on the phone which whilst I didn't much enjoy it, is cheap. Business 2 was post-internet and cost about £200 in well-placed advertising which took people to a website I made myself for £0. That attracted enquiries which I steered into the bag. Reinvested proceeds in kit as required.
Had never heard of MVP until this thread!
Business 1 was pre-internet and cost c.£1K to start (for a phone/fax machine and stationery), then mostly badgering on the phone which whilst I didn't much enjoy it, is cheap. Business 2 was post-internet and cost about £200 in well-placed advertising which took people to a website I made myself for £0. That attracted enquiries which I steered into the bag. Reinvested proceeds in kit as required.
Had never heard of MVP until this thread!
Simpo Two said:
Had never heard of MVP until this thread!
And some will try to convince others that their start up/business expansion plans will fail unless they jump on the buzzword bandwagon and adopt the latest version* of common sense.(*see also Value Proposition...Business Model Canvas etc etc etc etc)
Frimley111R said:
what were your MVP stories and examples?
£160 on some raw materials plus £120 to convert them, before putting an ebay listing up and getting a sale within 35 minutes. Shame the updated retail version of the product sells at less than £3!However every manufacturing run sells out eventually, albeit slower this year than all previous. Future plans are to offer it via the high street.
ReverendCounter said:
And some will try to convince others that their start up/business expansion plans will fail unless they jump on the buzzword bandwagon and adopt the latest version* of common sense.
(*see also Value Proposition...Business Model Canvas etc etc etc etc)
Business Model Canvas? That's a new one. Prototype, I was thinking (and always called it), until our advisors insisted on us using the term MVP in the investment proposals (or "decks").(*see also Value Proposition...Business Model Canvas etc etc etc etc)
Had we been able to code, we could have done it for a fraction of the cost - but speed drove is to outsource the build. It also saves us future scaling problems, as the build is correct from day1. I've seen lots of systems needing major refactoring after a short period of time as fixes are made ad-hoc and the code bases goes to s
t making enhancements difficult.Our Prototype cost was very high, and risky but was something we feel worth it given the returns. The overall design was several years in the making, but only now is technology making it a viable business proposition.
stongle said:
I've seen lots of systems needing major refactoring after a short period of time as fixes are made ad-hoc and the code bases goes to st making enhancements difficult.
Usually in startup land, the refactoring need isn’t really due to “fixes”. Instead it tends to be a combination of speed/time to market and cash burn - when you start you often don’t have the luxury of;t making enhancements difficult.1) Knowing all for your customer/product requirements;
2) Having the time/resources to be able to fully develop architecture that will work long term;
3) Having a team of the size/maturity/experience to do it properly from day 1. You likely can’t afford this, or the right people don’t necessarily share your risk appetite. And of course there’s a different skill set at formation/early stage vs what you’d want in a mature environment.
As a result, what gets built/shipped first time round is often little more than a simple proof of concept, often omitting key features that you don’t need or know about yet, or isn’t sufficiently modular in design. It takes a lot of commitment to then, when you’re growing, to refactor. I would pretty much always expect a refactor would be needed before hitting volume/scale. If it isn’t, then that’s a bonus but it may mean that you’ve not sufficiently thought through your product roadmap...
In my experience, people get tied up in knots when they start thinking about MVP because too often the emphasis is on technology (at least it does in the world I inhabit). Much better in my view to think in terms of MSP (minimum saleable product) which requires a more holistic view to be taken about how you’re going to deliver for your clients. It’s also one thing getting your first iterations ready to show/deploy to clients (the less said the better about how you actually make them work in the early days!) and another being able to get it onto a solid footing...
)Web hosting company started with approximately £500 in 2003. Paid for server space, company reg, domains and some software. Built the web site myself. Essentially bootstrapped at each stage of growth and took four years before paying a salary (Fortunately I was a student, living off my student loan). We could really have done with finance at different times (building a datacentre, acquiring businesses) but banks were not interested because we had no personal assets to give personal guarantees on anything. It wasn't until we didn't need the finance we had offers left right and centre to give us money.
I wonder how many businesses never get to that stage because they hit critical growth points where they need to invest in staff or equipment or new premises but can't quite make that leap.
I wonder how many businesses never get to that stage because they hit critical growth points where they need to invest in staff or equipment or new premises but can't quite make that leap.
LooneyTunes said:
Usually in startup land, the refactoring need isn’t really due to “fixes”. Instead it tends to be a combination of speed/time to market and cash burn - when you start you often don’t have the luxury of;
1) Knowing all for your customer/product requirements;
2) Having the time/resources to be able to fully develop architecture that will work long term;
3) Having a team of the size/maturity/experience to do it properly from day 1. You likely can’t afford this, or the right people don’t necessarily share your risk appetite. And of course there’s a different skill set at formation/early stage vs what you’d want in a mature environment.
As a result, what gets built/shipped first time round is often little more than a simple proof of concept, often omitting key features that you don’t need or know about yet, or isn’t sufficiently modular in design. It takes a lot of commitment to then, when you’re growing, to refactor. I would pretty much always expect a refactor would be needed before hitting volume/scale. If it isn’t, then that’s a bonus but it may mean that you’ve not sufficiently thought through your product roadmap...
Good and interesting observations. We went around this slightly differently, as rather than build all in-house we brought in some components / digital assets. Rather than bog down building api / data as service tools; we bought it in (sortof). We also had pilot clients engaged early in the design phase. Doing that and with input from some of our vendors really helped avoid mistakes. My view was to mimic how computer games can be built rather than do it all ourselves.1) Knowing all for your customer/product requirements;
2) Having the time/resources to be able to fully develop architecture that will work long term;
3) Having a team of the size/maturity/experience to do it properly from day 1. You likely can’t afford this, or the right people don’t necessarily share your risk appetite. And of course there’s a different skill set at formation/early stage vs what you’d want in a mature environment.
As a result, what gets built/shipped first time round is often little more than a simple proof of concept, often omitting key features that you don’t need or know about yet, or isn’t sufficiently modular in design. It takes a lot of commitment to then, when you’re growing, to refactor. I would pretty much always expect a refactor would be needed before hitting volume/scale. If it isn’t, then that’s a bonus but it may mean that you’ve not sufficiently thought through your product roadmap...
Basically we saw an opportunity in the financial services industry where other vendors had tried to sell a service that didn't or couldn't meet the client demands - particularly as they couldn't get all the relevent data into the right place at the right time - throughout a products life cycle. The cost leakage we can save is many multiples of the clients licence fees. Corona, helps our business case as we can increase compliance footprint for remote workers.
As for funding, we used Pension led funding. My pension effectively owns prefs (paying a coupon) in the business (so I lent the money to myself and if it goes tits up my pension takes the hit). Its a good idea IF you don't want to give away too much equity or take on debt. It can be expensive in fees (legal, accounting etc); but we got a decent slug upfront to cover operating and development costs. Fortunately I'd built up a decent pension over the years, and time to build back losses. The minimum in a pot you need is 50k, I think - but fees could eat near 8k of that - so should be carefully considered.
stongle said:
We went around this slightly differently, as rather than build all in-house we brought in some components / digital assets. Rather than bog down building api / data as service tools; we bought it in (sortof). We also had pilot clients engaged early in the design phase. Doing that and with input from some of our vendors really helped avoid mistakes. My view was to mimic how computer games can be built rather than do it all ourselves.
I don't think I'd ever advocate building everything bespoke. What you outline is often the right way to build tech (or even whole organisations) these days - laser focus on core product, let other specialists pick up things that you can't do as well as they can. I always to challenge people to look at their own product development from the perspectives of what they need to 1) Own; 2) Control; 3) Specify; 4) Take off the shelf. You tend to find key client touchpoints, IP, workflows, and UX in (1), a bit less in (2) if you carefully outsource elements, and 3rd party specialisms/commodities in (3) + (4). After all, you typically add the most value by doing the things you're best at! Sometimes the parties you can work with change startup --> more mature (either because you have more money, different needs, a more proven model) which again speaks to refactoring being almost inevitable.Client involvement in design is an interesting one. I have mixed feelings about it. You need to ensure client acceptance of the product, but too often people want to mimic (or only slightly evolve) what they're used to seeing/doing already. That might be OK. Depends how much time you've spent thinking through the problems you want to solve and how disruptive you want to be...
As for money... I'd love to build something innovative with no external money but things get expensive quickly! These days I think spreading the risk across and helping out with several ventures is the way to go.
Lol. Some people need this and only 99p TODAY ONLY!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lean-Startup-Innovation-S...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lean-Startup-Innovation-S...
CzechItOut said:
Lol. Some people need this and only 99p TODAY ONLY!
Lol? Really? Some of the responses provided make you laugh out loud? To some people that book is worthless because they've already had a common sense approach to starting up, without someone trying to convince them they need to read a book first.ReverendCounter said:
Lol? Really? Some of the responses provided make you laugh out loud? To some people that book is worthless because they've already had a common sense approach to starting up, without someone trying to convince them they need to read a book first.
This book defines the concept of Minimum Viable Product. Most of the answers above, while interesting in themselves as how companies, particularly bootstrapped one, started out, are not examples of MVPs.CzechItOut said:
This book defines the concept of Minimum Viable Product.
It’s also arguably flawed in its overall approach. Suggest having a read of this for a simple critique: https://hbr.org/2019/10/what-the-lean-startup-meth... . I have also seen some howlers in the way people attempt to interpret and deploy LS thinking. Always strikes me as ironic/intriguing how an author whose own startups didn’t really amount to much ends up getting hailed as a startup guru. Wouldn’t dismiss completely, but worth reading more widely in my view. CzechItOut said:
This book defines the concept of Minimum Viable Product. Most of the answers above, while interesting in themselves as how companies, particularly bootstrapped one, started out, are not examples of MVPs.
I'm not trying to go on some personal attack here, but this whole MVP thing is just a traditional common sense approach, repackaged and rebranded so it can be sold to newcomers to the microbusiness/SME start up arena by convincing them that they'll fail without getting on board with it.ReverendCounter said:
I'm not trying to go on some personal attack here, but this whole MVP thing is just a traditional common sense approach, repackaged and rebranded so it can be sold to newcomers to the microbusiness/SME start up arena by convincing them that they'll fail without getting on board with it.
No problem. I don't think MVP is a common sense approach, that's the point. Time and time again I see people spend thousands on technology in order to build their idea into a product, only to find there actually isn't a market. The whole point of an MVP is the spend the Minimum amount of time and money on technology, but still deliver something Viable which delivers your idea in a Product for the end user. This allows you to test whether a market exists before investing in an all singing, all dancing solution.
Now, don't get me wrong, I appreciate that terms enter the general lexicon and then get repurposed. MVP is often used simply to refer to bootstrapping a business (as many of the posts above show) or in an IT sense to mean the Must Have requirements on a project. However, being a purist, this is not the definition of MVP as described in The Lean Startup.
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