I really enjoy watching Y Combinator’s videos, because they provide very high-quality advice about entrepreneurship. Also, a lot of their partners have worked and built many products and services from scratch and they work with thousands of entrepreneurs across many fields of expertise. In this blog post, I will explain four concepts about a minimum viable product from a video explained by Michael Seibel, a co-founder of the once well-known startup Twitch.
1. The genius behind the following midwit meme :
The meme is very counterintuitive to how I was taught at school. Back then, I was always taking as much time as possible and I would work on every possible detail for any school projects or to prepare for exams, because getting the best grade possible was my goal. However, when it comes to a minimum viable product, the time factor has to be shortened as much as possible and the details are not clearly defined UNLESS I immediately launch whatever and talk to whoever uses it.
2. It is not bad to feel fear of launching, but it is bad to act upon it.
People are EQUALLY as likely not to care about a minimum viable product built in one week than another built in one year. Even more counter-intuitive, they may care more about a minimum viable product built in one week!! I don’t know about you, but to me, this is infinitely scarier than just launching.
3. I should not be a fake Steve Jobs thinking that I know exactly what people want.
The only real successful launch is when at least one customer is willing to provide any feedback. I do not have to start with all of the answers, because the best insights are discovered after anything is launched.
4. People who genuinely care about a minimum viable product have their hair on fire.
If you imagine right now that your hair is on fire, you might think that you will reach out for water, but your natural instincts will instead force you to grab any random surrounding item. Whatever the surrounding item would be in this analogy is the equivalent of a minimum viable product.
In short, everything about this article is about launching something bad right now and iterating based upon the customer feedback. Michael Seibel knows a lot about founding software based startups so he does have a bias towards them, but I still find all of his advice useful and I try to adapt them based on my circumstances. For example, I applied them when it came to launching my blog
I will also do so when launching videos or any other projects in the future.
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