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Don’t spend six months building your minimum viable product (MVP). You really want to launch something fast (in weeks, not months) in order get feedback from real customers and iterate before you are too far down the road on a concept that isn’t quite right. So says Sarah Leary, founder of Nextdoor, Partner of Unusual Ventures, and product guru. Here she shared her tips for building your MVP. If you want to dig in deeper, Sarah has made herself available for one-on-one mentor sessions that you can book now.
1. Do the bare minimum
“People are constantly thinking about how to scale before figuring out the right offering and product,” says Leary. Identify your long-shot assumptions and figure out the fastest and smallest experiment to validate against this assumption. To solve this problem, your MVP should include the bare minimum set of features to solve this problem.
2. Visualize your user journey
Visualize your user journey and identify any potential issues before you start building. Roughly sketch out a prototype or wireframe of your concept in order to check its validity of it. That way, you can determine whether your assumption will stand up against reality and see if it’s worth pursuing.
Related: Book a one-on-one session with fashion designer Rachel Zoe
3. Use a feedback loop to continuously improve and optimize
“One of the keys to being innovative is learning how to take an insight or a hypothesis and break it down into steps to validate it with real customers and users,” says Leary.
This is the central idea of the book The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, which breaks down the feedback loop:
- Launch your product
- Get customer feedback
- Rapid experimentation
Agile development involves iterative development and continuous testing and refinement. This approach can help you build and improve your MVP quickly and efficiently.
Related: Book a session with angel investor Kim Perrell
4. Test your MVP with a small group of users
Leary believes in the power of unplanned magic. “Don’t be afraid to do unscalable things to try and crack the code so you can learn what is magical about your product,” she says. Gathering feedback from a small group of target users can help you identify any issues and gather valuable insights for future development.
By following these tips you can create a successful MVP that helps your business validate its ideas, gather valuable insights, and build a product that meets your customers’ needs. If you’d like to talk about your idea with Sarah, you can book a one-on-one mentor session right now.
