So it’s been a while since I’ve written anything (I know I know, I’m lame), but after coming across yet another thought-provoking post by my man Eric Ries I just had to jump back into the saddle.
In the August 3rd entry entitled, “Minimum Viable Product,” Ries argues that the majority of entrepreneurs take one of two approaches when it comes to building products (be it to delight customers, make a lot of money, or change the world): they either try to “maximize their chance of success” by building something with a rich feature set or “release early and often” in order to “get as much feedback as possible as soon as possible.” However unfortunately for them (and their customers), neither is particularly viable.
For starters, spending an inordinate amount of time “perfecting” a product only lends itself to risk; if your end user does not like what you have created, it may be too late to right the ship (you may have already run out of money). Whereas “releasing early and often” puts you at the mercy of the ever-changing needs/demands of your consumer base (if only because “chasing what [they] think they want” is a never-ending and ultimately futile process).
Case in point, just look at The Freight Exchange and Smart Genetics.
1) The Freight Exchange: There were a number of reasons why my partner and I failed to get TFE off the ground, but none of them was more egregious than our drive for perfection.
In 5 short months we squandered 20K of self-financing – 15K of which we spent on a programmer – in an effort to put out the most feature-rich freight matching site possible – and for what? We didn’t make a dime.
2) Smart Genetics: SG was the polar opposite. The company never had any direction.
In an effort to make a sale, we would spam our prospective customers with new landing pages, content, and discounts every couple of days – hoping that something would stick. Suffice to say, not only did we fail to increase our revenue, but we failed to learn anything about our target audience as well. Ouch!
The solution therefore Ries concludes, lies somewhere in between: create a product with a minimally viable set of features such that you can achieve the maximum amount of validated learning with the least amount of effort (i.e. maximize the learning per dollar spent).
Though the process will not be easy and may very well take a while, believe me: The more you can learn, and the more meaningfully you can apply that which you have been taught, the closer you will be to attaining Nirvana.
I am. Therefore I dream. 