Today I want to talk with you about MVP – Minimum Viable Product. It’s a kind of marketing–business term and I don’t usually like using marketing-business terms, because they put distance from the real meaning of things, but this is a good term to know.

MVP is just basically about getting the simplest version of your idea out there and based on the reaction of the audience, you make improvements so that you’re fine-tuning your website all the time. (I’m specifically talking about a website here, but the same theory applies to launching products, services and entire businesses!!)

Here’s a quick exercise you can do to help you get started. Write down:

• What do you want your site to look like?
• How will convince people to connect with you / buy / subscribe?
• What do you need to create to get this working, in the most simple way possible?

Making progress

Another thing that I want to say about MVP is that it is a great way to just focus on progress over perfection. Sometimes when you put something together, you may be bothered by little details. You might even get fixated on them. 

It’s natural to want a your website to look perfect! It’s representing you online, you feel like it needs to be ‘finished’ 100%. BUT, the kicker is… when you get it in front of your audience, you’ll know the real things that you need to improve, based on their real behaviours. If you get everything ‘perfect’ before showing it to your potential audience, you’ll probably create a lot of extra work for yourself.

That’s not to say your site will be unprofessional looking! Not at all! MVP is about launching a simple version and based on people’s interactions you’ll ‘iterate’, you’ll make improvements on an on-going basis. 

The most realistic feedback you can get is from people’s willingness to buy or pay or subscribe… So the best way of making a website that people enjoy, understand, use and revisit is by releasing your MVP, getting feedback, collecting data and making improvements as you grow.