02. Initial MVP Requirements - Core Features

Estimated Time

• Reading: ~10 minutes
• Video: ~15 minutes
• Activities: to be completed prior to next week

Insights

• We previously touched on foundational knowledge and explored several tools that will be useful as you build your MVP
• This section will double down on a few of the activities you've completed.
• We will begin to pull it together as you identify the core features you'll include in your MVP

• As we discussed, for your MVP to be successful it has to provide value to your customers or they simply won't use it
• As a founder it is vital that you understand and can directly answer the following:
• What is the major problem your idea, product, service solves?
• Who is the ideal customer you are targeting?
• Who else is solving this problem for them and how are you going to stand out?
• What is your single value proposition and what are your core features?
• Now there may be some slight deviations as you gather feedback from users,
• But at the core, you will spend the rest of this course building an MVP to solve a specific problem for a specific user
• Remember you are not going to build your entire MVP in one day and the first version will not be perfect
• When thinking about an MVP Daniel Burka describes the best MVP as having Goldilocks quality:
• “The ideal prototype should be of Goldilocks quality. If the quality is too low, people won’t believe the prototype is a real product. If the quality is too high, you’ll be working all night and you won’t finish. You need Goldilocks quality. Not too high, not too low, but just right.”
• The MVP is meant to get your vision in front of users, gather feedback, and determine if your solution solves a big enough problem that people will pay to use it

Ideal Customer Profile

• Refer back to the "Coming up with an idea for a startup" section when you identified your ideal customer for your idea
• Where do these people live online? How will you get in front of them?
• What are you going to do to attract your first 5 users? Your first 20 users?
• Maybe you already have a small network of people who fit your ideal customer profile
• Maybe some subreddits make sense for you to frequent and become an active member of
• Maybe you join the Product Hunt community to learn and collect feedback
• Maybe you share your experience via blogs, Twitter threads, or TikToks.
• Starting your own conversations while building in public
• Early on it is okay to do the unscalable activities that will get your first users
• Find where your ideal customer is located and begin to interact with them
• Offer value, insights, and ask for feedback on your new solution that will solve their problem
• While building your MVP keep this ideal customer in mind
• Too often founders get distracted by a new shiny idea
• Stay laser-focused on your single value proposition and the user who needs your product
• You can not lose sight of who your target audience is in the process
• Gather feedback as early and often as possible
• Be careful only collecting feedback from friends and family
• Especially if they are not the target user
• But even if they are - people often have a hard time giving constructive feedback to close friends
• Expand beyond this group to collect insights on what you are building as soon as possible

Thinking Ahead

• It is a good idea to start thinking about:
• How you will make money
• Most successful companies have an idea of how they will make money from the start
• We will spend more time on business models in the coming sections
• So if you aren't sure right now, don't panic
• But it is worth keeping top of mind because if you can't make money, your idea won't work out
• Who is your competition?
• It is important to focus on your single value proposition, but you also need to be aware of your competition in the space
• Again, we will dig deeper into the competitive landscape in a coming section
• But for now, do a quick Google search and identify who is also solving the same problem
• It is not a bad sign if there is competition
• It shows that the problem is worth solving - others are doing it
• The key is to figure out how you are going to do it better, faster, and/or cheaper
• How is your single value proposition going to distinguish you from the rest of the field?
• What is your core differentiator?
• This will help you prioritize the features and explain to users why they need you

Start Small

• The M in MVP stands for minimum for a reason
• This does not mean you sacrifice the value that the user receives from your product
• The MVP must solve a real problem from the start
• It doesn't need to solve all the problems, but the main one is a must
• There are tons of examples of major companies finding success with their MVP
• For example, look at Uber (originally called Ubercab) and their MVP
• They had a singular focus that brought users value immediately upon launch
• Book and pay for a car from your phone
• It was simple and clear what the value was
• Uber started small
• They had three cars in one city (see original landing page below)
• And you order from the web, app, or text
• This single value remained the focus for a few years
• They iterated on this MVP based on customer feedback
• It was 2 or 3 years after the launch of their MVP before they started to deviate from the MVP and allow drivers to use their own, non-luxury cars

• So what made Uber and their MVP so successful?
• They were laser-focused on their single value proposition
• They offered the maximum value with a minimum product
• They identified their ideal customer and targeted them
• They collected feedback after every ride
• They iterated on their product
• They doubled down on what was working
• Then, when they were ready they added non-luxury cars and additional cities
• They have since added more offerings and deliveries
• Hear directly from Uber Co-Founder, Travis in the early days of the company

• Jason and Travis Kalanick Co-Founder of Uber discuss the following topics (and more) from Uber's early days:
• 42:30 How did you and Garrett come up with Uber while at Le Web in Paris?
• 34:45 How does Uber work?
• 46:00 Travis says there are going to be more Uber cars than town cars in each city.
• 47:00 Travis: Successful entrepreneurs can get their first round of funding done very fast.
• 48:30 How do you know when you actually have a good idea?

Building an MVP

• There are a lot of debates about how to and how not to build an MVP on the internet
• One of the most popular descriptions you'll find is for "building a car" (shown below)

• In the top "How NOT TO BUILD" image the user is unable to use the product until it is complete
• As mentioned before, customer feedback throughout the process is vital
• You want to build in a way that the user is getting maximum value as quickly as possible
• You could spend a lot of time and money building this first model only to find out that the car is not what the customer wanted
• In the bottom "How TO BUILD" image the user can be transported at every step
• This allows the user to provide feedback along the way
• Another positive consequence of building this way is you may discover that it is the "bike" stage of the product that differentiates you
• You could then double down or pivot based on this customer feedback
• If you waited to get that feedback until you were handing the keys of the car to the user - you would have missed that opportunity
• The cake model is another way to think about creating an MVP

• This model reinforces the importance of starting small
• The user gets no value if you simply give them the ingredients ("How not to build")
• It is better to give them a cupcake while gradually working towards the wedding cake ("How to build")
• Some argue that the cake model is a better representation of building an MVP because the user can sample the actual end product throughout the process
• Unlike the car example where there is a drastic transformation from stage to stage
• However, it really depends on what you are selling
• If they are selling transportation in the first model then one could argue the car and cake model are essentially the same
• If they are selling a car thought it makes sense that they want to differentiate steps in a way that more resembles a car along the way
• Regardless, the biggest takeaway when building your MVP is to ensure your users are always finding value and that you can collect feedback along the way
• The article MVP in Agile - Screw the MVP & Build Incrementally does a great job of laying out steps to improve your MVP in an implemental way
• If you commit to getting a little better every single day you'll notice drastic improvements looking back a month or a year from now
• In Atomic Habits, author James Clear points out the value of these small improvements
• If you can get just 1 percent better each day, you’ll end up with results that are nearly 37 times better after one year. - James Clear
• This concept applies directly to building your MVP

• James Clear explains this concept from Atomic Habits: How to Get 1% Better Every Day in this quick video
• As you saw with the two models above (and any search you do online) there is some debate about what an MVP is and how to build one
• We are not going to get caught up in all of that - there will be no test over vocabulary
• We are going to focus on building a great product that delights customers

Initial MVP Requirements

• You have already started to collect the initial pieces for your MVP through the previous activities
• You have come up with an idea that solves a specific problem
• Focussing in on a single value prop
• You will spend time revisiting who the ideal customer is that needs this problem solved and where you can find them
• You will also briefly look into the competitive space to understand who else is working on a similar solution
• You previously started to lay the foundation for what your product will look like
• The wireframe from section "No Code Intro" will act as a guide as you start to build your MVP
• Identify the key features that align with your single value prop
• Ask yourself if there are any templates you could use to build these features
• The Bubble templates we used from the previous section have a lot of great tutorials to get you started
• Is there a template that you could tweak to fit your needs and avoid starting from scratch?
• e.g. If I'm launching a company that is the Uber of Helicopters...
• A quick Google search for "Bubble Uber template (or clone)" pops up some useful examples
• How do you prioritize features?
• First, ask yourself if the feature supports the single value prop you've defined
• If it doesn't then put it in your backlog and don't revisit it for a while (maybe years)!
• If it does support your single value prob you'll have some decisions to make
• But ultimately the priority needs to come down to whatever provides the most value to the customer
• If you provide value the layout and design are not as important
• Think about Craigslist
• They identified their ideal customer
• Provide a service that their customers value
• They have hardly updated since the mid-1990s
• Now this is not to say that design isn't important - having things look nice is important
• Probably more so than the 1990s when Craigslist started
• But in terms of prioritizing features - value to the customer is top
• Remember your MVP is not going to be perfect, but it should solve a problem and provide value
• Trying to be perfect might even ruin your startup as described in this great resource: Don’t Be Perfect: 7 Reasons “Feature Creep” Will Ruin Your Startup
• If you are looking for a more specific steps to define key features, prioritize their development, and review some concepts we've discussed previously - you'll want to check out How to Prioritize MVP Features: 9 Useful Approaches

So just how far can you go with a no-code MVP?

• There are several examples of no-code products getting thousands of users, tens of thousands of dollars monthly revenue, and raise significant rounds before moving off of no-code platforms
• The platforms just keep getting better, and the solutions are able to support more and more users
• Chris Lu discussed in a recent interview how they built copy.ai's MVP on a no-code platform in around 4 weeks
• Within 8 months they hit $90k MRR and raised a $2.9M seed round
• Jason talked about the no-code revolution on The Knowledge Project podcast
• Jason believes it is possible to get to $10m-$100m in revenue fully on a no-code platform
• Episode Date: Apr 12, 2020
• You have been laying the foundation for the initial requirements of your MVP in previous sections
• Before you start building in the coming sections take some time to revisit and solidify your answers to the following:
• Does your idea solve a major problem?
• Who else is trying to solve this problem?
• How are you going to differentiate?
• Who are the people who have this problem?
• Find them
• Talk to them
• Gather feedback to help build a solution they will pay for
• What is your single value proposition?
• Stay laser-focused on providing value and delighting your users
• What key features are necessary for your product to deliver this value?

Additional Resources

• Creating an MVP: The Art of Small Steps
• Build your MVP without code
• A guide to get started and mistakes to avoid
• Don’t Be Perfect: 7 Reasons “Feature Creep” Will Ruin Your Startup
• How to Prioritize MVP Features: 9 Useful Approaches
• MVP in Agile
• 6 Great Minimum Viable Product (MVP) types You need to Look at Before Building your Product

Activity

• Dig deeper into and continue tracking the following:
• Where is your ideal customer?
• How will you talk to them? What are they saying?
• How are they currently solving the problem they have?
• What is the main value you provide that will draw them to your product?

• Dig deeper into and continue tracking the following:
• Who else is in your space?
• What are your distinguishing features?
• Why would a customer use you over their current solution?
• Will they pay to use your solution? Or how will you make money?

• Continue to update your wireframe
• Does the feature directly provide value to the customer?
• Create a backlog of features that aren't immediately necessary
• Prioritize the features that are core to. your product
• What feedback have potential users given you based on your initial mock-ups?
• You will begin to work in no-code next
• The more complete these initial wireframes are the easier it will be to jump right into building your application