My experience with MVPs and such.

Matt Shobe • @shobe • angel.co/mshobe

● Low Fidelity – have you identified a problem customers care about?

● High Fidelity – is the solution on the right path to scale?● Getting out of the building is the common thread – not

any particular technology● Alternate: “Minimum Value Proposition”

¡Guero! ¿Como se dice “MVP”?

My first MVP: Paper Prototyping (1994)

● Everyone can draw equally poorly● Stop obsessing over pixels, shades of blue● Don’t spend engineering £ on code that

doesn’t solve problems● Reflected desktop software realities of the

time

My second MVP: ship it, then watch the customer feedback queue (2005)

● Reactive, but progress was based on hard-won experience

● Ties engineering to consequences● Higher-fidelity (obvs)● Covers new and existing users (if you would

like it to)

My most recent MVP: somewhere in between. (2014)

1. Understand

2. Diverge

3. Decide

4. Prototype

5. Evaluate

http://www.gv.com/lib/the-product-design-sprint-a-five-day-recipe-for-startups

How does the MVP get you to product/market fit?● Design, Engineering, and PM need to all be on the

same bus● “Measure twice, code once”● Remember the 10x rule: “Meh” is as good as “start

over”● When people start saying “I will pay you $X to make

this pain go away,” you’re getting there

MVP - maker tools

● Flinto for any mobile prototyping fidelity● Keynote/Omnigraffle for low-fi web● Various web frameworks for shipping/hi-fi

○ Foundation 5○ Bootstrap 3○ Meteor

MVP - metrics

● Do they pay?● Do they sign up? Download your app?● Do you make a marketplace? Match rate?● NPS?