Planning an MVP

There’s lots of advice online for first-time founders looking for an outline of how to launch a minimum viable product (MVP). In short: there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach to planning a product, and there’s no substitute for experience. This blog will detail my experiences working on my startup over the summer and the lessons I’ve learned along the way.

Empirically, it may seem as though first-time founders would be better positioned to launch a product. Simply put, young people understand market dynamics and the behavior of consumers in a fresher light than older people. This idea was made popular in 2007, when Mark Zuckerberg said “I want to stress the importance of being young and technical. Young people are just smarter.” Was Zuckerberg on to something here? I think not.

The one thing that Zuckerberg does have right is that young people can launch quickly. This gives them a leg up against entrenched corporations, who act slowly (and tend to be out of touch with users). An education startup run by students is going to have a leg up on a large company building a competitive product because the startup will be better suited to deliver immediate value. However, there are a multitude of factors that go into building a truly durable product.

The distinguishing factor between these two hypothetical products, however, is that the team at the large company will have experience bringing a product to market. This means they understand product market fit and can iterate with (relative) success. The same cannot be said of the startup, whose founders must balance hiring, runway, subsequent rounds of funding, and all sorts of other things one wouldn’t consider simultaneously. This is one of the reason that startups fail (but not the most common).

Basically, the entire process of launching an MVP can be boiled down to three things:

• Launch (as quickly as possible)
• Gain initial users
• Iterate

If you can get these three things right, you’re on the right track. I’m hoping to follow this blueprint to develop the future of my company.

Suoni, the startup I founded in March, is still in prelaunch. Our mission is to connect teachers with free resources from around the world. You can view a preview here.

If you’re looking for further advice on launching an MVP, I would read Michael Seibel’s blog at Y Combinator.