Traditional business logic would tell you to spend 18-months in development, build a complete and super shiny product then spend millions of dollars marketing it to your target market. Unfortunately, traditional logic doesn't hold when you're in a startup and a) have no idea if the market actually wants to buy your super shiny new idea and b) a shoe-string marketing budget. This session will introduce you to the concept of the Minimum Viable Product (or MVP) and BUILD-MEASURE-LEARN process for getting something new off-the-ground.

1. A Minimal Viable Product that works
How to set your goals, test your assumptions
and not waste your time
Olga Pavlovsky @Lplatebigcheese
Bootstrap Seminars 21 October 2014

2. Why are you here?

3. Why do you need
a product?

4. How much money do
you have to invest in the
product?

5. Your Goal
Why are you doing this, really?
!
What do you want from your life?
!
What is your long term goal?
!!!
Does having a product company (or a High Growth Tech Startup)
really get you to your LONG TERM goal?

6. I am assuming your short term goal
is: to create and launch a product
that people love and allows you to
build a revenue generating
company.

7. Please: sit back and think about
the idea you have for your
company and product.
!
Apply the rest of this presentation
to that idea.

8. My argument: Don’t build one MVP.
!
Create MVP1. Prove the concept.
Build MVP2. Make money.
!

9. Your steps to reaching the goal
!
1. Create something you can SHOW to people
!
2. Get an OPINION on whether you have a business idea that solves
a real problem
!
3. Set the list of prioritised features for your product
!
4. Create the first product that solves just enough of your target
clients’ pain
!
5. Make money

10. The to do list
!
1. Create something you can SHOW to people
Action: create MVP1.
!
2. Get an OPINION on whether you have a business idea that solves a
real problem
Action: go and speak with people about MVP1. Gather REAL data.
!
Go / No-Go decision
!
3. Set the list of prioritised features for your product
Action: process the information gathered from speaking with people.
!
4. Create the first product that solves just enough of your target
clients’ pain
Action: create MVP2.
!
5. Make money
Action: launch and grow MVP2.

11. What are you NOT trying to do?

12. Your non-goals
!
1. Waste time
!
2. Waste money
!
3. Fail for completely avoidable reasons because you are listening
to your social conditioning, bad advice from people who don’t
know what they’re talking about or just forgetting your goals.

13. Your non-to do list
!
1. Waste time
Don’t: sit around thinking and not creating something to show.
!
2. Waste money
Don’t: build too much or the wrong thing.
!
3. Fail for completely avoidable reasons because you are listening
to your social conditioning, bad advice from people who don’t
know what they’re talking about or just forgetting your goals.
Don’t: just think this is going to be easy. You need to be on your
toes at all times.

14. The most common mistakes I see
founders making
!
1. Wasting time
Not concentrating on the project full time, or directing energy into the
wrong activities.
!
2. Wasting money
Hiding behind the creation of a product and not speaking to anyone.
!
3. Failing for completely avoidable reasons
Mistake: getting defensive about problems raised by users,
Mistake: not listening to the real data,
Mistake: getting too emotional.
!
Remember: the goal of MVP1 is to gather REAL DATA and OPINION fast.
!
Then, proceed only if you feel you’re genuinely on a positive track.

15. Why can I help you?

16. [insert life story here]

17. Lessons you can learn from my life lessons
!
1. Don’t waste time
If you’re in the right place at the right time, act.
!
2. Don’t waste money
Sell, from day 1. Don’t ever act like money grows on trees. It
doesn’t.
!
3. Don’t fail for completely avoidable reasons.
• Use. Real. Data.
• Only stop when you get the right answer.
• Trust your intuition (System 2 becomes System 1).
Book: Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman.

18. Some of the world thinks on similar lines
!!
The best things to read - priceless books:
!
“The Four Steps to the Epiphany” - Steve Blank
!
“Lean Startup” - Eric Reis
!
“Traction” - Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares
!
“Dream, Design, Surf “- Marcelo Bravo

19. And
!
There’s one more thing.

20. Where are you now?

21. Where are you now?
What will happen if you start building right now, with only the
information you have so far about your users?

22. Success is a process

23. But it all start out with
the MVP (1 & 2)

24. Strategising is your friend
Design in your friend
Planning is your friend
!
BUT
!
Time waits for no man
!
And “if I had more time I would have
written a shorter letter”

25. Your MVP is not a stand-alone project.
It’s just a leg of the journey (a critical one).
!
!
Today: build Tetris.
!
When you’re rich: build Grand Theft Auto V.

26. Now: the formula.
!
How to research, design and build your
MVP in record time

27. At Imaginary Cloud, we believe that the process of product creation has 5 key steps
Completing each of these steps in the right order provides the greatest chance of your
product being a success: high quality, on time and on budget.
CONCEPT STRATEGY DESIGN BUILD GROW
The Product Design Process addresses the “Concept” stage of the
product creation journey and delivering you the full design concept
After completing this successfully you will be able to move on to
the “Strategy” phase, knowing that you have tested and validated
your product assumptions with an expert design and development
team.

28. The Product Design Process
Concept
!
Research
1. Industry research (benchmark)
2. User research
Strategy
3. Value proposition and your features list
Design
4. User journeys
5. Mood-board
6. Design
7. Technology & project plan
!
Build
8. Implementation
!
… and then Grow

29. The Product Design Process
The small print
Each step is:
- essential
- dependent on those prior
- needs to be managed against your goals
!!
Your goal at the end of this entire process: a completed MVP2
or diversion of attention to another project.

30. 1. Industry benchmark
What are all the alternatives?
Where is the gap? (and… is there a gap?)

31. 2. User research
Who are your target clients/customer? Early adopters?
What are their motivations? What is their top problem?

32. 3. Value Proposition
What is the value proposition for your target users?
Which one is the easiest to deliver and attracts the right people?
This is the best tool I have seen to help you do this

33. 3. Value Proposition = Feature List
PLEASE LISTEN CAREFULLY
!!
The Value Proposition is delivered through one, or a number of
features.
!
Each feature can do one, or more, of the following things:
1. Acquisition
2. Retention
3. Revenue
4. Remarkability
!
Each feature takes time to create.
!
So, using your prior research, you need to:
- define the real value proposition
- identity the features that deliver this, or parts of it
- prioritise them

34. 3. The method for prioritising you features
VALUE
PROPOSITION
Specific to this
audience
GOALS
to activate
the value
proposition
LOCATION
of user when
needing your
product’s help
to achieve
goal
PROCESS
What steps
must user
take to
achieve goal?
EXPERIENCE
How can you
make each of
those
processes
really simple?
FEATURE
What’s the
feature you’re
going to
build?
Acquisition Retention Revenue Remarkability #
Audience
1
(Name)
Goal 1
Device(s) in
use:
Goal 2
Device(s) in
use:
Goal 3
Device(s) in
use:
(C) Imaginary Cloud 2014

35. 3. Value Proposition -> prioritised feature list

36. 3. Prioritised feature list = closing this

37. 4. User journeys
CREATION TOOL CATALOG ONE-VIEW
CATALOG | COLLECTED COVVERS
CATALOG | COLLECTED COVVERS
Account Name | Inbox
CREATE | CATALOG | DISCOVER | STORE
Name
Description
blablablablablablablabl
ablablablablablablabla
blablablablablablabla
Sharing options
Private | Public
Edit Covver
View Mode
CREATE ACCOUNT | SIGN UP
Name
Description
blablablablablabl
ablablablablabla
blablablablablabl
ablablablablabla
View
Mode
ADD TO MY ACCOUNT
Account Name | Inbox
CREATE | CATALOG | DISCOVER | STORE
Name
What do your users need to do to “get” the value proposition?
Can you shorten and simplify this? What can users get in one click?
Owner's view
User 1 shares
with user 2
Description
blablablablablabla
blablablablablabla
blablablablablabla
blablablabla
View Mode
ADD INSIDE PAGES
Toolbar V2
User 1
creates
User 1
view
User 2
Add to account
Visitor's view

38. 5. Moodboard
Really useful, especially for
helping you pitch your vision.
!!
Honestly, if done efficiently,
this is ample time won.

39. 6. Graphic Design
Option 1: design the interfaces and make them “work”
Sell the vision and help people imagine their problem is being solved

40. 6. Graphic Design
Option 2
!
Design a Brochure
Use a company such as Hippoprint to create a small print sample of
physical brochures.
!!
Option 3
!
Design a landing page with great content and a way for people to express
their interest
Use Launchrock, or other templates.
!
Work fast. Be pragmatic.
But remember, your message must be clear and brilliantly expressed to
ensure people understand the concept.

41. 6. Graphic Design: Tools for mock ups
There are literally hundreds of tools which can help you create sketches
and wireframes which are “interactive”.
!
You need to choose one which matches your team capabilities and needs:
!
Ask:
1. Will I, or a qualified designer be using it?
2. Will I be doing this for the web or mobile?
3. Will I be branding it, or just telling a nice story?
4. Will the OPINIONS I gather from MVP1 help me decide to move onto
MPV2 where I gather real data by trying to sell people something?
!

42. Now that MVP1 is complete…
1. Set your assumptions
Do people really have the problem you’re convinced is there?
How do they solve it now?
Would they pay to solve it?
How much would they pay to solve it?
Observe: who will actually pay to solve it?
!!
Survey as many people as possible.
What is statistically significant to you?
!
Be honest with yourself about the results.
!

43. If all goes well, if you prove your
assumptions with real information…
!
Then GO TO MVP2

44. If you have doubts, confront them
now. And act now.

45. 7. Technology and project plan
This is for MVP2 where you want to actually put something on the web or
on mobile and get people to part with their time and cash.
!
You need to be aware of the following stack in software:
!!!!!!!!!!!! Make the right choice given your confidence in the idea following MVP1,
Product
(Shopify)
Super
fast Very
rigid
Framework
(Ruby
on
Rails)
Speeds
you
up Flexible
for
a
defined
purpose
Language
(Ruby)
Pretty
slow Completely
flexible
your team’s technical capabilities and financial circumstances

46. 8. Technical implementation
This is a whole other subject…
!
There’s a whole body of literature out there - please do your research.
!!
But the basics:
!
1. Find someone who knows what they’re doing.
!
2. Check that they really do know what they’re doing.
!
3. Keep on checking they know what they’re doing.
!!
Beware of compromise - it will cost you later.

47. Launch and Grow
!!
Not the subject of this talk… but a subject you must become expert in.
This is now your full time job.
!!!
Please remember this book:
!
“Traction” by Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares

48. How much should you spend on MVPs?
MVP1: keep it to a few hundred pounds at most.
!
MVP2: try to keep it to one month of development, or maximum of two.
[NB if you have a CTO or are really approaching this with a solid
understanding of technology, the architecture will take more time. But I
strongly recommend your first features take just a month or two to build).
!!
Why should you keep the spend low?
In my experience, two things usually happen:
1. You will throw the first product away
2. You will discover you could have done things much, much more
simply than you did, and you’ll change a lot.
!!!!

49. How much do real people spend?
I have observed that there is a calculation that can be done to see if your
MVP costs are aligned with your place in the product’s journey.
!!
MVP cost = customer expectations + idea confidence + circumstances
!!
£2,000 = (huge problem, low expectations) + (founder new to market)
+ (needs investment to continue building product)
!!
£100,000 = (customers are CEOs of banks)
+ (founder has excellent connections) + (founder has cash to invest)
!
In both cases, it took about 12 months of full time work from day 1 for the
businesses to be self-sufficient (i.e. allowing the founders to focus on
them full time)

50. If you take away just three things
today, please make it these:

51. Our friend, the design lozenge

52. The method for prioritising features
VALUE
PROPOSITION
Specific to this
audience
GOALS
to activate
the value
proposition
LOCATION
of user when
needing your
product’s help
to achieve
goal
PROCESS
What steps
must user
take to
achieve goal?
EXPERIENCE
How can you
make each of
those
processes
really simple?
FEATURE
What’s the
feature you’re
going to
build?
Acquisition Retention Revenue Remarkability #
Audience
1
(Name)
Goal 1
Device(s) in
use:
Goal 2
Device(s) in
use:
Goal 3
Device(s) in
use:
(C) Imaginary Cloud 2014

53. And build Tetris
not GTA V

54. Thank you!
@Lplatebigcheese
Olga Pavlovsky
COO, @Imaginary_Cloud