business for engineers part 3: minimum viable products
DESCRIPTION
A quick introduction to basic business concepts aimed at engineers and all who wish a simple and quick explanation. Part 3 in the series is covering the concept of a Minimum Viable Product.TRANSCRIPT
THE STORY SO FAR
2
Short
Long
Sales
cyc
le
Is aware of having a problem
Has a problem
Been actively looking for a solution
Assembled a solution out
of parts
Has a budget
THE STORY SO FAR• Customers may want other features
once they can actually buy the product
• This requires new product development
• How can we optimize this effort?
• Answer: Lean development and MVPs
• The topic of this workshop!
Engineering
Engineering
Sales
Sales
Customer identifies a problem
Solution design
Product sales
Solution feedback
Product development
Sales
MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT
• Coined by Eric Ries, author of Lean Startup
• Not a demo, but a PRODUCT: it has features and a price.
• “Sacrifice short term pain for long term gain”
• Allows us to test our assumptions
“LOW-FIDELITY” MVP
“I have my first lo-fi MVP up at http://thinknaturalhealth.com/Get-Guts-to-Glory/
I am testing how many people will click on the "Add to Cart" button, and if I get at least 1% response rate, then I will go ahead and make the actual product.”
DROPBOX MVP
In parallel with their product development efforts, the founders wanted feedback from customers about what
really mattered to them. In particular, Dropbox needed to test its leap- of- faith question: if we can provide a superior customer experience, will people give our product a try?
Source: TechCrunch
DROPBOX MVP
“It drove hundreds of thousands of people to the website. Our beta waiting list went from
5,000 people to 75,000 people literally overnight. It totally blew us away.”
FOOD ON THE TABLE MVP• Company provides software that creates weekly meal plans and
grocery lists of food your family likes, then hooks into your local grocery stores to find the best deals on the ingredients for a weekly subscription fee
• Elements:
• Meal database; Recipes based on desired preparation time, money, health, variety; Recommendation engine; Up-to-date databases of grocery store inventory and prices; Defining and printing purchase lists
• How would you test such a service?
“CONCIERGE” MVP
• One customer, one store, two men - the CEO and VP of product
• Go to stores and interview potential customers; try and sell the service (for the weekly fee) until they get a customer
• Visit the customer personally each week, go to stores and get coupons, prepare recipes for the user - and collect the $9,95 per week
• “They were not building the software; but, each week, they were learning more and more about what was required to make their product a success”
Source 1 Source 2
How could you use the MVP concept at your company?
BUSINESS FOR ENGINEERS
Jan Isakovic @iYan
1: Customers and sales 4: Value proposition
2: Product conception 5: Core competencies
3: Minimum Viable Product 6: Company values