Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.

By Aaron Franklin

As a startup with a yet-to-be-released functional product, my team has been thinking a lot about the common advice to quickly release the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Eric Ries defines the MVP as “that product which has just those features (and no more) that allows you to ship a product that resonates with early adopters; some of whom will pay you money or give you feedback.”

Over the past few months, we have had a lot of pressure to release our product. We chose to devote more time to achieve a more addictive initial product experience. As a result, the product has completely transformed. Looking back on what we could have launched, and what we will launch, I am grateful we did not rush to market. In the meantime, I have also been able to learn from competing products that launched too soon and failed fast – very fast.

In Why Wesabe Lost to Mint, Marc Hedlund documents the failure of his Startup. He provides the first evidence I’ve seen against the MVP and being the first to market:

“Wesabe launched about 10 months before Mint… There’s a lot to be said for not rushing to market, and learning from the mistakes the first entrants make. Shipping a “minimum viable product” immediately and learning from the market directly makes good sense to me, but engaging with and supporting users is anything but free. Observation can be cheaper. Mint (and some others) did well by seeing where we screwed up, and waiting to launch until they had a better approach.”

When I dug into the topic further, I was pleased to find further support for our decision by Andrew Chen. He argues for a Minimum Desirable Product (MDP), which he defines as “the simplest experience necessary to prove out a high-value, satisfying product experience for users”. While the difference is subtle, he notes that MVP is about business (“What’s the minimum product I have to build in order to figure whether or not I have a business?”) and the MDP is from a human perspective (“focus primarily on whether or not you are providing an insanely great product experience and creating value for the end user”). He goes on to argue that companies seeking scale, with less of a focus on immediate revenue, should choose the MDP. He argues that Google, Facebook and Twitter were all desirable but not viable for years.

I believe the primary risk of the MVP is losing your first wave of users. I have had access to enough betas to know how quickly users determine if they’ll come back. Most users will only try you once, and the first wave of users are the most passionate about the topic. The MDP is a better match for LazyMeter because the product is related to task management, a crowded space with a clear market. New task management solutions launch every day, so it is critical for us to have a strong and promising release. We have been able to study competing product launches and pivot to be more successful.

I am guessing this will be a controversial post, so let me be clear. I’m not saying this is the right approach for everyone – I merely want to point out that there are multiple options for how to approach a product’s initial unveiling. MVP is the model you read about every day, but there are alternatives. Also note that we are sharing our product with a small group of target users for feedback and not working in isolation. And I’m NOT arguing that a release should be feature complete – we are launching a minimum feature set, but making sure our minimum feature set is desirable and what we set out to deliver.

If you follow my posts, you’re probably starting to see that I believe in questioning everything. There’s no shortage of advice in the startup world, and ultimately founders need to decide for themselves. Despite all the advice, there isn’t a recipe for success. I keep randomly returning to these lyrics from Wear Sunscreen by Baz Luhrmann:

“Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.”

What do you think? Viable or Desirable? Is there a difference?

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