WTF is an MVP?
Starting a new business can be tough, especially if you’ve never done it before. We feel you.
DAMN GOOD actually works with a lot of startup enterprises, so of course, we have a lot of experience advising them on their initial journey to market.
Because startups are usually more cash-poor than established businesses, our first piece of advice is usually to keep budgets as tight as possible. That means avoiding extra expenses, or more accurately, avoiding whichever expenses can be set aside until later.
As a startup, your main goal is to get to profitability as quickly as possible, and you can’t do that until you get some revenue flowing. So, your first order of business is to get your products or services to market.
Again, from a budgetary standpoint, that may mean dedicating funds toward marketing rather than hiring staff. It may also mean holding off on product development so you can afford to build a website.
We advise clients to focus on developing an MVP, or “Minimum Viable Product,” to go to market with. The MVP is essentially your proof of concept. It’s generally a early version of a product or service coupled with a straightforward marketing strategy that places it in front of a limited target audience.
The reason this makes sense is that it allows a startup to keep from sinking all of its eggs (funds) into one basket. If consumers don’t respond to the MVP favorably, it affords the startup with the chance to refine their product/service offering and/or their marketing message and/or methods and try again.
All too often, startups imagine instant success and build out their entire enterprise so they can leap into the market with both feet.
But success is a funny thing. It prefers to be cultivated, rather than discovered.
Do a DAMN GOOD deed for today. Pass this tip along to someone you know that’s launching a new business.
