To MVP or not to MVP that is the question
As a product manager, one of the critical decisions you face when building your digital product is answering the question - ‘Will customers pay money for this thing I’m building?’. Its all part of the risks of going into the unknown, building something that you hope solves a problem for your customer and provides enough to value for them to part with their hard earnt cash. It really a game of risk management, the gamble of investing in a build and hoping for a return. One of the more popular ways of reducing that risk is building a Minimum Viable Product. This technique was first coined by Frank Robinson in 2001 and then popularised by Steve Blank and Eric Ries as part of the lean product movement.
A minimum viable product is version of a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development. The analogy that is often used is the idea of building a skateboard instead of car and then you can validate your product idea without over investing in features that your customer may or may not buy. Should be a win win right?
Henriks blog post revisiting this diagram is an interesting read.
A recent example of this approach has been the release of the new Meta app ‘Threads’ (We will just ignore the fact that the last Threads app from Meta was a snapchat dupe that came into the scene in October 2019 and was retired just two years later). The app has been downloaded over 100 million times and has an amount of news coverage and hype that most tech companies could only get in their wildest dreams. But people have already noticed a bunch of features missing, some things pointed out:
Not launching to customers based in the European Union
Not being able to have more than one threads account in the app (even though you can have multiple instagram accounts in a single app and thats the mechanism to sign up and access threads)
Not being able to delete your account without deleting your whole instagram account
I’m sure theres more than just these points, but these are some pretty glaringly obvious omissions for any modern tech app, let along one put out from a FAANG company. So was it the wrong decision to launch their version of an MVP? There was an opportunity in the market given the experience of twitter users at the moment and they had an infrastructure (potentially) in a previous app, what did they have to lose?
There are plenty of positives that you can take from their launch:
They got a very fast time to market and they scaled quickly in terms of users (which equals more data which equals more ad revenue)
They minimised their upfront costs by not dealing with EU based privacy laws
They have a bunch of data already that will help them build a roadmap for features that is based on data on how users are interacting on the platform and using the app
The profiles they will be able to build up with threads and instagram data (amongst the rest of what they attribute to users through facebook and affiliated sites)
So maybe they built the bicycle in the diagram above and their customers were happy with that, its yet to be seen.
But what Meta has done is not necessarily the approach that everyone should take. If you don’t have the scale, brand and experience of Meta then it’s likely you will end up in a very different position.
There are risks in launching an MVP that you should be aware of:
Launching with a limited feature set leading to dissatisfaction
If you manage to launch your product and get some customers to sign up and then they use the platform and its missing feature important to them then you may have lost the opportunity to convert them in the long run. There is a product development and customer satisfaction model called the 'Kano model’ which is from the 1980’s and was developed by Noriaki Kano.
The Kano model talks to the idea that features and functionality that starts off as innovative eventually become basic needs for people. If we look at some of the above examples in the ‘Threads’ app, you could say that the ability to delete your account would have been novel in times gone by but now it’s considered something that people expect out of an app. So you may have got some more confidence about your your product idea but you have potentially put off customers in the process based on minimum needs not being met. This will be an interesting journey for Meta as the hype starts to die down.
Competitive pressure
When you launch an MVP you are sharing your idea with the world and potentially your competitors will be able to look at what you are doing early and hone in on some of your weaknesses which could put you further behind the curve. Threads has essentially used the Twitter model (back to basics anyway) so this is less of an issue for them, but if you are building something thats challenging an existing larger incumbent, they might just see what you built and leapfrog you.
Future expectations of customers and the need for continuous resourcing
Once you launch your MVP and people sign up, they will start to have expectations about when those missing features will start to appear and they will start to see progress towards a new platform. This can start you on the circle of building based purely on whoever the loudest customer is and what they want which is definitely not a healthy was to manage your product. Its important to consider what resourcing and investment you will make so that you can retain those original customers.
In conclusion
Releasing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) can be a strategic decision in product development, offering numerous benefits such as faster time-to-market, cost-effectiveness, user-centric iteration, and risk mitigation. While there are potential drawbacks, such as losing a competitive advantage and user dissatisfaction, there is an opportunity to use the technique if you consider some of these before you release. As a product manager, understanding the pros and cons of releasing an MVP empowers you to make informed decisions and drive the success of your digital product.