When you think of MVP, you probably think of this guy.

But really, who is the MVP?

Justin Foell

Partner at 9seeds.com

justin@9seeds.com

@justinfoell

This guy!

- Who am I: Justin Foell - partner at 9seeds.com, web developer since 2003.

I didn't study marketing in school, I studied computer science. But I worked for a successful internet marketing company for 5 years and learned quite a bit during that time.

The biggest takeaway was they would constantly make small changes to their websites to see what worked. They'd move slightly in a new direction, and then they'd try something else. It wasn't very scientific, but it was a great way to test the market.

MVP Minimum Viable Product

http://laurierentrepreneur.ca/entrepreneurship/sell-your-minimal-viable-product-then-build-your-business/

- MVP - Minimum Viable Product

"An MVP should have just enough features to allow you to deliver value to your early adopters, get paid, and gather feedback to further develop your product."

Your minimum viable product may be lemonade, but you may additionally have to step back and see if there's market interest in lemonade. An MVP is all about gaging market interest.

During the course of this talk - the content may speak to you directly if you're developing a product, or it may be advice you can use to sway a client that wants to send you on a death march. It can help youmanage their expectations, and ultimately the amount they spend.

Rome Amazon wasn't built in a day

- Don't be that guy - Reduce features to minimum amount

"It has to have X" - every time someone says that, especially if X one feature out of a huge list - question it. Is this feature really necessary?

Reduce features to a minimum

This may be hard for entrepreneurs, it's their idea. You telling what they do and don't want is a tough pill to swallow. Keep at it, fight the good fight!

Is a feature just there because the competition does it? Doing something simply because competitors do it is bad reasoning. You should be doing something to set yourself apart from your competitors.

Will the feature (or lack) foster (or counteract) adoption? The reality is you probably don't know if it will, so it's better to be rolled out as a single update to see if has any effect.

People will steal my idea!

- Don't be concerned with people stealing your ideas.

If you get to market first, you will have a leg up on your competition

Often what makes an idea fly is the people surrounding it, not the idea itself.

No, I won't sign your NDA. Here's how it goes: someone makes me sign an NDA to tell me they want to build Amazon.com. Then I need to spendthe rest of my time convincing them they shouldn't build Amazon.com, they should build what Amazon.com doesn't have. Then I regret wasting my time (and signing the NDA).

1 | 0

How many features would you rather have:

- How many features would you rather have: 1 or 0?

The likely scenario if you have a huge feature list is that the product will take months to develop. In the meanwhile, the market may change, and more likely the client will change their mind about what they want before the first release. This will result in extending the development timeline.

Release early,Release often

- Take a page from Open Source - release early, release often

LET THESE WORDS SINK IN

Why do you want to release early?

To get paid! Your MVP should be valuable enough to justify it's initial cost. You can use it to build capital to pay for further development without having to borrow.

CardSmithsBreaks

Already using WordPress & WooCommerce, selling baseball cards and using ustream to show it live every night.

Original request: Reponsive Theme, Team Break, Random Break, and Draft Break.

He could have opted to do all of these all at once (that was his original request). We convinced him it would be better to do these features one-at-a-time. He does breaks nightly, so he can get immediate feedback on features released.

Phase 1:Responsive Theme & Team Break

Phase 2:Random Breaks

Phase 3:Draft Breaks

Phase 4:One-click purchase?

I don't sell a product

- What if you're running on seed money or you don't sell a product?

CROWD

It's better to build a client base and test your market so you don't release a steaming pile of dog poop after your development team has been locked in a room for 6 months.

My MVP is BIG

- If your project has large technical hurdles, consider venture capital, bootstrapping, or self-seeding

You know what this means?

I won't talk about Venture Capital, I'm more of a boostrap type of guy, but there are funding options out there. If you've got a big idea but not the bankroll, you'll need to exercise one of these options.

A question that should be asked:

How much risk?

HOW MUCH RISK ARE YOU WILLING TO TAKE?

Is the greater reward always accompanied by greater risk? I don't think so. Small steps along the way, will make users and investors happier in the long run.

An acquantence spent six-figures building an app with borrowed money and there's no telling if the app will be profitable.

If you're a self-starter you might try something like Kickstarter.

Let's look at Pressgram as an example. It uses WordPress! John Saddington raised his goal, so even starting his project had very little risk. If he were to quit his job and just work on Pressgram, heprobably could have taken a year to develop it by himself - but that timeline is too long.

Pressgram already had 500 paying adopters. Was there market interest? Hell yes! The iPhone app and website released less than 5 months after it was funded.

WordPress = Rapid Development

- Why do we use WordPress? Because it is a rapid development framework.

Content Management SystemUser system: logins, passwords, rolesTheming engine: single best thing about WordPressPlugin repository: reduce your risk by using as much out-of-the box functionality as possible

Focus your development time on what makes your client's site unique - don't reinvent the wheel.