A minimum viable product is the simplest thing you can give to the very first set of users you want to target so that you can see if you can deliver any value to them. It is helpful to talk to some users before you decide to build your MVP. It's more helpful if you are your own user so you can see if your product is working for you.

Minimum viable product (MVP)

Theoretically, if you decide to solve a problem you know someone has, you will speak to that person. If that person is you, it's even easier. But if you are building a product for a mysterious set of users, you may have to question that.

How to get your first users

Hold the problem you're solving tightly, hold the customer tightly, but hold the solutions you're building loosely.<ul><li>Launch quickly, even if it is imperfect. </li><li>Get some initial customers. Get anyone using your product and see if they can get value out of the product.. You don't have to think about how you get everyone using it. </li><li>Talk to your users after you've launched your MVP to get feedback.</li><li>Iterate. Continue to improve on your solution until it actually solves a problem in most cases.</li></ul>

The goal of a pre-launch startup

<ul><li>Build fast. Do it in a few weeks, not months. For a heavier MVP, such as building a rocket or biotech, your MVP can start with a simple website explaining what you do. This can help when you talk to people so that they have something to refer back to.</li><li>Limited functionality. You need to condense down what your user needs into a very simple set of things. Founders may want to address all of their users problems and for all their users. But it is better to focus on a small set of initial users and their biggest problems. The rest should be ignored until later.</li></ul>

Build a lean MVP

Many founders see how big companies launch and then assume they have to launch in the same way. However, a launch simply means to start getting customers. The only way you can know if your product solves their problem is to put the thing in front of your customers. If it doesn't solve the problem, you know right away.

Launching

<ul><li>Timebox your spec. Your spec is the list of things you need to build before you launch. If you want to launch in three weeks, then focus on the stuff you can build in three weeks.</li><li>Write your spec. If you don't write things down, you may change them and not even realise it. If you write it down, you can be honest with yourself that you're changing it.</li><li>Cut your spec. When you're a week into your three-week sprint, you may realise that you have too many things in your spec. Cut the things that are not that important.</li><li>Don't fall in love with your MVP. It will probably change as you adapt.</li></ul>

Hacks for building an MVP

YC CEO and Partner Michael Seibel shares his approach to building an MVP and getting your first users as a pre-launch startup. Startup School is YC's free online program for founders. Transcript and lecture slides here: https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6f-how-to-plan-an-mvp This lecture is part of YC's Startup School, a free online program and global community of founders. Register and join the community at https://www.startupschool.org/ Timestamps 0:00 Introduction 0:41 First, talk to users 1:40 Goal: launch quickly 2:40 After launching, get feedback 4:30 Lean MVP 5:37 Real-world examples 8:21 Heavy MVPs 9:33 Launches aren't special 11:22 Hacks for building an MVP quickly 12:57 Don't fall in love with your MVP

Stashed ideas

Michael Seibel - How to Plan an MVP

Customer Discovery “is all about questioning your core business assumptions.” (Brant Cooper, author of The Lean Entrepreneur)Performed correctly, Customer Discovery is a customer-centric, scientific process that puts evidence behind an assumed product-market fit:<ol><li>Observing and defining a phenomenon (problem or market need)</li><li>Developing a hypothesis about a solution to the problem (business idea)</li><li>Conducting an experiment to test the hypothesis (getting “out of the building”)</li></ol>

Customer Discovery

<ol><li>Define a Hypothesis: Form a hypothesis that defines both the problem & the solution. A way to frame this is to fill in the following sentence: My idea solves [insert problem] by [insert solution].</li><li>Define Your Assumptions: In the hypothesis, you are some assumptions about the idea: The problem is actually a problem. The solution will actually solve the problem. The market has this problem are are willing to pay.</li><li>Ask (Good) Questions. Target people who you believe could be potential customers.</li><li>Evaluate & Refine: Incorporate what you’ve learned & repeat the process</li></ol>

The 4 Steps of Customer Discovery 

Customer Discovery questions are open-ended & nonspecific. You are letting the customer lead the conversation & tell you about their struggle. Example questions:<ul><li>Tell me how you currently do _____________________. </li><li>How is that process working for you? </li><li>If you could do anything to improve your experience with ___________________, what would it be? </li><li>What’s the hardest part about ______________? </li><li>What do you like/dislike about ______________? </li></ul>Pay attention to the words, attitude or tone of voice. They can reveal huge insights.

Good Customer Discovery Questions 

Different kinds of hypotheses reflect different stages of your Customer Discovery journey:<ol><li>Problem Hypothesis: Validate the problem you’re looking to solve. Is it an actual problem? What’s the scope of it? Why does the problem exist? </li><li>Solution Hypothesis: The solution to a problem you’ve identified. Does it actually solve the problem in the customer’s eyes? </li><li>Price Hypothesis: Is it feasible? Can it generate revenue? Are customers willing to purchase? </li><li>Go-to-Market Hypothesis: How will distribution work? How will users find your product?</li></ol>

Customer Discovery Hypotheses

Products & Innovation 

Customer Discovery Process

Every additional user on TikTok makes every other user more creative.On old social networks you have to create your own version of a meme from scratch. But TikTok lowers the barrier to the literal remixing of everyone else's content. They have a wealth of features that make it dead simple to grab any element from another TikTok and incorporate it into a new TikTok.

The Network Effects of Tik Tok Creativity

Markets in the internet and technology age are conducive to winner-take-all effects: If you are first to stumble upon some flywheel/ a good user loop, the returns are even greater than they would've in any other era in history.If a flywheel requires three or four or even more things to connect in your app, it takes more work to ship all of them at once, and that feels like a riskier expenditure of your team's time. Especially when founders think minimum releases are the way to go. A good flywheel is not very minimum.

Flywheels & MVPs

On TikTok, you can just press the Duet button and start talking into your phone, and soon you have a side-by-side of the original video and your reaction video (youc an choose from any number of their preset layouts for reactions). That's an explicit productivity boost; I can measure it in time saved for the same output.

Tik Tok Duet

You can also post a question in a video and expect that some number of people will "Stitch" an answer to your question and distribute that as a new video.A popular prompt is "<a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tell-me-without-telling-me" target="_self">Tell me you're X without telling me you're X </a>" or any number of its variants like "Show me you're X without showing me you're X."Stitch wasn't necessarily designed to be used in this way, but as a primitive, it's well-suited to any number of uses, including making TikTok a sort of video Quora.

Tik Tok Stich

According to Jeff Bezos: "When the last smart person in the room gives up on the idea."&nbsp;It also implies that you should bring some ideas back when a new smart person, or maybe a naive overconfident one, enters the room and champions the idea.

When to give up on an idea?

The toughest job for any creative is the cold start. The blinking cursor on the blank page in a new document.&nbsp;The beauty of TikTok's FYP algorithm and the Discover page is that you don't have to create a TikTok from scratch. The vast majority of TikToks are riffs on memes and trends that other users originate. It's no shame to be a 1 to n TikToker. Many on the platform achieve their first viral hit riffing on an existing meme.

The creative blank slate

Richard Dawkins introduced the term meme in his classic <a href="https://amzn.to/3ak6uoO">The Selfish Gene</a>, defining it as a unit of information that spreads via imitation. He noted that memes evolve via natural selection just as in evolution.The internet has always been a fertile ground for the accelerated breeding of memes. But TikTok is a form of assisted evolution in which humans & machine learning algorithms accelerate memetic evolution. (Memes can start from almost anything on TikTok. It can be the lyrics of a song, or just the vibe of a track, or both)

Michael Seibel - How to Plan an MVP

Customer Discovery Process

The network effects of Tik Tok

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