This is a concept I’ve heard before, but I never took it to heart until recently. The book, The Lean Startup talks a lot about this concept. If you’re not familiar, let me give you the basics. The idea is that instead of developing the entire solution, testing it so it works perfectly, adding every feature you need, instead, you build a scaled down version. You include only a handful of features that you believe will be the most useful to you customer.
Now, if you are anything like me, you must be instantly skeptical. I mean, afterall, I’ve been in the industry, and I know exactly what customers want. Right?!? 🙂 (if you don’t know me well, trust me when I tell you, I used to believe that. ha ha ha). I look back on my first product, which is all but scrapped now. I had a great idea, that no one asked for, but I believed as soon as someone saw it, they would instantly see the value, just like I did. That experiment was a blessing and a curse. It launched me into the business world… but no one ever wanted it. The up side is that I learned a lot of new skills (like basis and web dynpro), and there are pieces that I’ve been able to re-purpose into my newer products. But, looking back, if I had built a MVP, I wouldn’t have wasted so many months building something that no one even knew they needed.
Don’t get me wrong, if you are building something that some one has asked for, by all means, do it 100%. But, if you are in my world, build the basics, add a few buttons, and leave the rest to demand. Inevitably, what I think customers want isn’t necessarily what they want or need… which could mean months of development that will be thrown away…
thanks for reading,
Mike