What should I consider during the initial kick-off?
What should I consider during the building process for the MVP?
What resources are helpful to consider in this phase?
What should I consider during the initial kick-off?
Distribution matters. Think about how to launch something upfront. Distribution & Building the product go together.
Restrictive Simplicity. Start rather simple with bare minimum. If the product doesn’t provide value, you will see it clearly and can then expand from there. Plus, you are faster to launch and get it into the users hands.
One clear objective. Have a clear vision/hypothesis that you can align every stakeholder on. Make sure you have one clear prime objective, otherwise gets too complex. On paper it is always easy to have multiple, but this can create misalignment. You can branch out later once you learned from real user feedback.
A clear north start metric to further create alignment. Have clear metrics how you want to capture that your product is delivering value.
A clear persona. Have a clear persona in mind whom you are building for. It is easier to start with a small group that will benefit from it (vs. a lot of people that sort of like/ benefit from it).
However, sometimes you just have to get something out there and talk to more users/learn until you hit that badge of users that get a lot of value (this is especially true if not building for existing personas).
In B2B context: Consider that buying personas are different to actual user personas.
What should I consider during the building process for the MVP?
Speed is everything. Get something into user hands fast. Your fears are usually not warranted. See that sample size is not too small. (Learned this with airline product)
A weekly or bi-weekly check-in for your self or with others:
Constantly check your assumptions at least once a week to see that you didn’t go away from initial scope. Have a set of assumptions that you can guide back to for yourself and the team.
What resources are helpful to consider in this process?
To get fast results, following the design sprint methodology can be super helpful to learn and iterate fast.
The Design Sprint – Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky