“If you build it, they will come.”
It’s a famous saying that’s both misquoted and misguided.
The “If you build it, they will come” mindset doesn’t hold true in a world where attention spans are decreasing, alternatives are increasing, and up to $582 is spent on advertising to each person, every year.
Marketing your startup is hard, especially if you’re a solopreneur or a small team. If this is your first time around or are still early on in your startup journey you probably have some basic assumptions that you use to guide your marketing decisions.
But before you jump in, I’ve identified 8 ‘aha moments’, aka paradigm shifts, you need to have to maximize your efforts. A paradigm shift is “a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions” – Oxford Dictionary.
I’ve focused on these specific points because they are common assumptions that can cost you wasted time and effort.
The first line is what you would normally focus on.
The second line is what you should focus on instead.
The second line is what you should focus on instead.
1:
I need an MVP: Minimum Viable Product
I need an MDP: Minimum Desirable Product
If you’re familiar with Eric Ries Lean Startup methodology, he suggests you start by building an MVP; a product with just enough features to solve the core problem and start getting customer feedback.
An MVP focuses on the business perspective – what’s the bare minimum I have to build in order to figure out whether or not I have a business?
From a marketing perspective, Andrew Chen suggests we aim at building a Minimum Desirable Product instead.
Whats the difference?
Simply, a minimum desirable product is one that focuses on the customer perspective – what’s the minimum product I have to build to provide a great experience that creates enough value for the user to come back.
His definition:
“Minimum Desirable Product is the simplest experience necessary to prove out a high-value, satisfying product experience for users (independent of business viability).” –Andrew Chen
An MDP offers enough value for a customer to come back to. You need to aim past the scope of an MVP. It’s a slight change of perspective, but it’s an important one if you want to build a great product.
For example, when it comes to products like mobile apps you only get 1 shot in the customers eyes. It’s extremely hard to get someone to re-download your app once they’ve deleted it.
If you don’t treat your customer with enough respect by building something they desire enough to come back to, you’ll lose their trust. Just like the app, it’s extremely hard to get them to trust you again. In situations like this, it’s not worth releasing an MVP – persevere until you can deliver an MDP.
It doesn’t mean waiting until you’ve build the best product on the market. It means building until you’ve got a product customers are going to desire.
But what about the feedback loop? ‘Measure’ and ‘learn’ are the other 2 key parts of the Lean Startup methodology, so you can continually iterate and improve:
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