MVPs
INSTRUCTIONS
You will create a storyboard that shows the narrative occurring from the time your customer has the problem you propose to solve up to the point where they are using your brilliant solution and enjoying its features and benefits.
Then you will create some form of low-resolution prototype to test in front of potential customers.
View both slide shows below in "present" mode.
Create a storyboard using google slides or some other presentation package. Otherwise, use a large sheet of paper and draw your storyboard by hand (hint: use stickies so you can move them around your board if needed). Share your file with me at MGTX82BAMA@gmail.com with the filename <storyboard_your full name/>.
Create a low-resolution prototype. This can be a landing page, an app screen mock-up, a video, or physical product. Send images to me at MGTX82BAMA@gmail.com with the name <prototype_your full name/>.
READ
WHY PROTOTYPE WITH AN MVP?
Build a prototype with the minimum set of features you need to test your assumptions about solving a customer problem. Why? Because the information you got from customer discovery does not by itself get you to launch full production and sales.
Customer validation is the process of making sure that you’ve understood your customers correctly, and that you’re developing proper corporate and product positioning. It is tightly connected with the Lean Startup concept created by Eric Reis in 2008. The concept consists of business experimentation based on hypotheses, iterative releases of different product versions and learning based on validation. So, as with Lean Startup, customer validation through creating the least resource-consuming product with basic features (MVP) and gathering feedback from real people helps to:
Determine whether you’re ready to hit the market;
Understand your customers better;
Build a sales roadmap;
Identify whether it’s time to scale up sales and marketing.
This is exactly the “work smarter, not harder” approach that prevents you from running out of money, failing and having to integrate costly changes into the completed product (Source: producttribe.com).
And read these
What I Learned by Prototyping With no Prototyping Experience: It’s going to be ugly… and that’s OK (Medium.com, 9/20/16)
From Idea To Amazon: How To Make Your Product Design A Reality In 14 Steps, (UseJournal.com, May, 2018)
Karnes, K.C. 2019. What Is A Minimum Viable Product + Methodologies For Marketers, https://clevertap.com/blog/minimum-viable-product/, 8/20/19
Using spreadsheets for prototyping (Bogdan Litescu, May 14, 2019, Medium.com), includes an image of a spreadsheet prototype of a UX of a homepage proposal. (though I would probably use google sites to produce the same prototype... the examples get more granular as you continue through the article)
Janine Sickmeyer on Twitter, August 26, 2020
View
Armstrong Lecture 10/29
I cover "MVP thinking" and landing pages.
Plague-Time Prototyping
I created this presentation on April 9, 2020, as our world continued to deal with the multifaceted impacts of the COVID19 virus. My intention was for students to have a toolbox of options to use to create prototypes of their ideas to help validate those ideas and in turn improve their pitches.
The Pretotyping Manifesto
Michael Seibel - How to Plan an MVP, August 1, 2019
YC CEO and Partner Michael Seibel shares his approach to building an MVP and getting your first users as a pre-launch startup.
Eric Ries on MVP Logic, 2009
Can one-sentence descriptions of your product be effective prototypes? You make the call.
These two examples come by way of Dave Bailey on Medium.com, April 12, 2017
Zuck: "Something where you can type someone’s name and find out a bunch of information about them."
Travis K: "‘You push a button and in five minutes a Mercedes picks you up and takes you where you want to go."
What You'll Do with Your MVP - Test and Validate
Practice
Assessment - Graded Activity
You'll build some sort of MVP in class with your team. Your MVP is a refinement / revision of the "demo" you created for your Solution Interviews; make something that is closer to your actual offering based on what you've learned. You'll show us what you made in the Validation module. Send me a picture, description, video demonstration, of whatever form your MVP (MGTX82BAMA@gmail.com).
Most of you will want to build a landing page, and that's acceptable as an MVP. You'll need to carefully choose your words and the message you project from your landing page based on the information you learned from your problem and solution interviews.
References
Karnes, K.C. 2019. What Is A Minimum Viable Product + Methodologies For Marketers, https://clevertap.com/blog/minimum-viable-product/, 8/20/19, accessed August 24, 2020.
Maurya, A. 2012. Running Lean: Iterate from a Plan A to a Plan that Works. O'Reilly: Sebastopol, CA.