The 3 most common mistakes smart entrepreneurs make building their MVP
During the past few years, we’ve helped hundreds of innovators and entrepreneurs bring their ideas to life. Most of our clients are well-versed in Lean Startup methods; they know the ideas and terminology, and they’re ready and willing to prototype, iterate and pivot their way to success.
Or ARE they? Well, it varies. Many entrepreneurs struggle to apply Lean Startup ideas to their own market reality. And when they fail to navigate the chasm between theory and practice – it derails the entire project.
Let me tell you story of two entrepreneurs – each pursuing a big new idea in a familiar market.
One client, “Bob,” had a burning desire to create a better group collaboration tool. He’d been developing this idea for months with his team – and their initial customer interviews reinforced their excitement. But when we started testing their idea with real target customers – rather than existing clients and friends – the project started to go sideways. Bob’s team discovered that customers weren’t as excited about their original idea as they’d hoped. And when we started designing the MVP, the team struggled to turn their big, compelling vision into a simple, stripped-down prototype. They understood Lean Startups concepts – but ultimately couldn’t navigate the difficult emotional terrain of bringing a complex idea to life with disciplined testing and iteration.
Another client, “John,” had an idea for a geo-centric money-saving app. Just like Bob, John’s team had early positive feedback on their big idea, and wanted my help bringing it to life. During early customer interviews, John’s team got mixed feedback on their core value proposition. But instead of backing away, they doubled down on listening to EXACTLY the right customers – and then used those insights to drive product decisions about which features to prototype first. It was emotionally difficult to show customers a stripped-down, somewhat embarassing prototype – but they pushed through, and got data that helped them streamline their design and quickly build a high-learning MVP.
So how did things pan out? Well, Bob’s team never managed to build and ship their collaboration tool. But John’s team marched ahead – and after much iteration & learning, launched their app in late 2015.
I’ve learned a lot from working with clients like John and Bob – and now I’d like to help YOU learn from their mistakes, and build the right MVP for the right customers.
Wanna learn the 3 most common that smart entrepreneurs make when building their MVP – and how to avoid them? Join us next Thursday Jan 7 for a FREE webinar during which I’ll reveal:
- How coaching 50+ design teams worldwide revealed huge, costly blunders in common MVP practices
- How leading startups like Slack use game thinking – NOT gamification – to avoid these mistakes and build products that people love
- How our Getting2Alpha system has helped dozens of entrepreneurs build the right MVP and find product/market fit
- Why the CEO of fast-growing startup Pley called Getting2Alpha ‘an invaluable investment’ after using it to go from idea to MVP in 5 weeks
If you want to build a smarter, faster MVP, sign up for the Webinar NOW
Even if you can’t make it LIVE, sign up and I’ll send you a full replay afterwards. Here’s to your success!