A former colleague is building out a SaaS start up and has asked me to help out with making sure the initial customers become raving fans. So I met with a mentor for lunch yesterday and that sent me down the MVP (minimum viable product) rabbit hole.
I did a lot of reading about wildly successful software startups and how their MVP beginnings. Probably my favorite is AirBNB – the founders built a site advertising air mattresses in their San Fran apartment to conference attendees. They just had an idea and wanted to see if anyone would be crazy enough to rent an air mattress/place to stay online. Since I have attended conferences at the Moscone Center in San Fran and my company spent well over $6K for a hotel room in the tenderloin, it clearly was a latent market they happened upon.
Talking with my colleague, they have already more features in the product than we probably need for the MVP. Now what we need more than anything is some folks actually using the product in the real world to see what works and what doesn’t. And a big value for us is going to be users who are willing to work with us. Users who are going to be willing to commit some time and resources to meet with us regularly and let us know what’s working and what’s not.
I’m putting a proposal together to discuss next week. It’s facinating work and I think we’ve got a product that could be a big benefit… BUT we won’t know until we get it into the hands of some users.