Michael Seibel - How to Plan an MVP

Summary

Michael Seibel, from Y Combinator, shares insights on planning a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in a startup journey. An MVP should be simple and quick to launch, primarily targeting early users to validate the value. Founders often overthink the initial stages, but the emphasis should be on releasing a basic version to gain feedback and iterate. Seibel uses examples from Airbnb, Twitch, and Stripe, illustrating their humble beginnings and the importance of maintaining flexibility in the development process. The key is not to fall in love with the MVP but to view it as a stepping stone for further growth.

Highlights

• Michael Seibel emphasizes the simplicity of an MVP. 🎯
• The importance of talking to users before building an MVP. 🗨️
• Launch something quickly, even if it's not perfect. 🏃
• Learn from early iterations by getting user feedback. 🔍
• Use real-world examples of successful companies' early pivots. 📈

Key Takeaways

• MVP should be simple and quick to launch. 🚀
• Talk to your users before and after launching. 🗣️
• Don't fall in love with the first version. ❤️
• Examples like Airbnb, Twitch, and Stripe started very small. 🏠🎮💳
• Iterate based on feedback and remain flexible. 🔄

Overview

Michael Seibel from Y Combinator provides a refreshing take on how to plan an MVP for startups. According to Seibel, the MVP should be simple and serve as a starting point to test the market waters. This means founders need to resist the urge to include all features and instead focus on releasing a basic version that can attract initial users. In essence, your first launch doesn't need to be perfect but valuable enough to garner feedback.

In his talk, Michael reminds founders about the importance of engaging with potential users pre-launch. Speaking with real users helps validate the problem and the proposed solution, making later iterations more meaningful. He stresses launching quickly and iterating based on feedback, steering clear of perfectionism, which often delays progress.

Michael illustrates his points using the early examples of companies like Airbnb, Twitch, and Stripe, which began with minimally viable products that were a shadow of their current selves. The key takeaway is not to fixate on an ideal vision but to stay adaptable, grow with your users' needs, and continuously refine your offering. It's all about evolving the MVP in a direction that truly serves its purpose.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to MVP In the introduction to 'Minimum Viable Product' (MVP), Michael, who works at Y Combinator and has experience with two YC startups, discusses the concept. He emphasizes how founders should avoid using jargon, yet acknowledges the startup world is full of it, with 'MVP' being one such term. Michael advocates for viewing an MVP as something extremely simple, highlighting it as the very first version you can offer.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Understanding MVP and User Interaction The chapter titled 'Understanding MVP and User Interaction' focuses on the importance of identifying and understanding the first set of users for whom you want to deliver value. It emphasizes the simplicity of creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and advises engaging with users early in the development process. The chapter warns against prolonged research phases and encourages quick, iterative cycles based on user feedback.
• 01:30 - 02:30: Launch Quickly and Gather Feedback In this chapter titled "Launch Quickly and Gather Feedback," the focus is on the importance of being your own user and understanding the problems your product is solving. The speaker talks about leveraging personal experience or direct communication with potential users to understand if the product is working. The chapter emphasizes that finding your first user should be intuitive, especially if the problem you're solving is one you personally experience.
• 02:30 - 04:00: The Importance of Iteration and Flexibility The chapter titled 'The Importance of Iteration and Flexibility' emphasizes the significance of launching quickly in the context of a pre-launch startup. This strategy is part of the YC (Y Combinator) ethos and has been consistently regarded as good advice for over a decade. By focusing on a prompt launch, startups can better understand their users and adapt accordingly.
• 04:00 - 07:00: Examples of MVPs from Successful Companies This chapter emphasizes the importance of launching a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) quickly, even if it is not perfect. The key is to get something out there, gather feedback, and iterate based on that feedback. The notion is to avoid prolonged development before getting user interaction. Early-stage startups should focus on getting their product to a point where it provides value to at least a small group of initial customers. The emphasis is on action and real-world testing rather than theoretical perfection, as many founders fail to get a single user before their startup journey ends.
• 07:00 - 09:00: Heavy MVPs and Regulatory Challenges In this chapter titled 'Heavy MVPs and Regulatory Challenges,' the emphasis is on the common mistakes new founders make after launching a minimal viable product (MVP). It highlights the necessity of overcoming these errors, particularly the need for engaging with users post-launch. Founders often have a fixed idea of their final product, leading to reluctance in seeking user feedback until the MVP is fully built. This chapter underscores the importance of interacting with users at an early stage to refine the product based on feedback, thereby addressing potential regulatory challenges and improving the overall user experience.
• 09:00 - 13:00: Rethinking the Concept of Launch The chapter titled 'Rethinking the Concept of Launch' challenges the traditional idea of starting with a minimal viable product. It emphasizes that initial iterations, which may be incomplete or rough, often don't provide useful feedback because they are not representative of the fully realized product. The chapter suggests that the ultimate concept of a product, although vivid and inspiring in the creator's mind, must remain adaptable. It might be necessary to alter this concept based on actual customer needs and responses, which can differ significantly from initial assumptions. Moreover, it introduces the principle of maintaining a strong focus on the problem being solved, rather than becoming overly attached to the initial product idea.
• 13:00 - 15:00: Tips for Building an MVP Quickly The chapter discusses strategies for creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) efficiently. It emphasizes the importance of maintaining a strong focus on customer needs while remaining adaptable with the solution being developed. The key takeaway is to iterate rather than pivot. Many founders, after developing a product, become attached to it. If the product doesn't meet a certain user group's needs, instead of trying to adapt it to new problems, the focus should be on refining the existing solution to better serve its intended purpose.

Michael Seibel - How to Plan an MVP Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 my name is michael uh i work here at y combinator i helped run the accelerator uh before that i did two yc startups um one 2007 and one in 2012. and today i'm going to talk to you about a minimum viable product so mvp we always yell at founders to not use jargon yet we have this whole set of stupid startup jargon and mvp is one of them um when you think about an mvp you should think about something ridiculously simple this is the first thing you can give
• 00:30 - 01:00 to the very first set of users you want to target in order to see if you can deliver any value at all to them that's all it is it's extremely simple i know you guys had a talk last week about how to come up with ideas how to come up with problems you want to solve what i will tell you is that it is helpful to talk to some users before you decide to build your mvp this doesn't mean you have to go into a three-year kind of research situation or you have
• 01:00 - 01:30 to work in industry for 10 years but some conversations are helpful it's even more helpful if you're your own user so you can tell whether your product's working for you i always get this strange question of how do i get my first users which always kind of confuses me because theoretically you decide to solve a problem that you know someone has so the way you get your first user as you talk to that person that you know has the problem and if it's you it's even easier so um
• 01:30 - 02:00 if you are building a product for a mysterious set of users that you have no idea who they are question that slightly um very slightly okay so the goal of a pre-launch startup um is extremely simple step one launch quickly this is something that's been part of the yc ethos from the very beginning and it's been great advice for 10 years and it continues to be great advice um if you can walk away from one thing
• 02:00 - 02:30 from this presentation it's launched something bad quickly that's it like literally the rest of what i'm going to say is basically going to be re-summarized versions of that same thing the second thing that an early stage startup needs to do is get some initial customers get anyone using your product you don't have to have a vision of how you get everyone using it but just anyone interacting and seeing if they can get value out of the product you'd be surprised at how many founders journeys end before a single user has actually
• 02:30 - 03:00 interacted with a product they've created um it's very very common so please get past the step it's extremely important the next one is talk to your users any of them after you've launched this mvp and get feedback this is one that's also extremely common mistake because most founders in their heads have a idea of what they want to build and so they kind of have this weird feeling that if i haven't built the full thing yet getting feedback on
• 03:00 - 03:30 the shitty initial thing is kind of useless of course it's not going to work it's not the full thing the full things can take three years 10 million dollars a whole team so feedback on the little thing is useless the reality is that in some ways the full thing is this really awesome idea in your head that you should keep in your head but it should be very very flexible because it might turn out the full thing that you want to build isn't what your customers want at all so um i have the saying hold the problem you're solving tightly
• 03:30 - 04:00 hold the customer tightly hold the solution you're building loosely and last most important iterate and i like to kind of distinguish between iterating and pivoting a lot of founders once they've figured out how to build something fall in love with it and so if it doesn't work for a certain set of users they start thinking well i wonder what other problems this thing can solve well you know the screwdriver is not actually good at screwing in anything but i wonder what other problems it could solve and they're like oh maybe you can use it to cook maybe you can use
• 04:00 - 04:30 it to clean and it's like no like the problem was i need to screw something in the user was like a mechanic and if your screwdriver doesn't help the mechanic solve the problem keep the mechanic keep the problem i need to screw something in fix the screwdriver like that's the thing that's broken right the broken thing is not the mechanic and it's not the fact that they need to screw something in so iterate continue improving on your solution until it actually solves a problem in
• 04:30 - 05:00 most cases most people should be building a very lean mvp so by that we mean um you should be able to build it fast in weeks not months this can either involve software or honestly we see startups just start with a landing page and a spreadsheet but most startups can start very very fast second extremely limited functionality you need to condense down what your user needs what your initial user needs
• 05:00 - 05:30 to a very simple set of things a lot of times founders want to address all of their users problems and all of their potential users when in reality they should just focus on a small set of initial users and their highest order problems and then ignore the rest until later you should have a vision of everyone you should have an mvp very small all this is is a base to iterate from that's it it's just a starting point um it doesn't it's not special in any way you just
• 05:30 - 06:00 have to start and so please make sure you don't feel like your mvp is too special okay uh here is a classic example uh this is one of airbnb's first landing pages uh in 2008 i believe one of the things that you might be interested in about in airbnb's first product is that there were no payments when you found a place to stay on airbnb you had to exchange money with the host in person needless
• 06:00 - 06:30 to say that was a pretty big problem but they started without payments no map view you know how when you search airbnb you can see where the house is in the city you don't have that sorry um and the person writing all the code nate was working part-time okay so everyone tells these kind of magical stories about how everything was perfect from the beginning airbnb not perfect from the beginning uh the next one twitch this was what
• 06:30 - 07:00 twitch looked like day one not very familiar well maybe a little familiar there's some video there and there's some chat there other than that nothing else uh twitch launched as justin tv which was a online reality tv show there was only one channel justin you had to follow his life if you didn't like his life you had to leave the website that's all there was the video was extremely low resolution it was funny a founder asked me back in
• 07:00 - 07:30 the day like oh like wasn't it weird you guys had video in your apartment weren't there all these like secret documents and things that like people would be able to see and it was like you could barely recognize our faces let alone documents that we had um and most importantly there were no video games no video games except if we decided to play video games in our apartment like that was the only time video games ever appeared and so let me just say you can do that quickly when you think about twitch it's much more complex now last stripe which wasn't stripe it was
• 07:30 - 08:00 called slash dev payments because why not like let's make a name that's really easy to remember um this was stripe day one no bank deals i won't tell you exactly how they process payments but uh it was in a very startupy way almost no features and even cooler if you wanted to use stripe the stripe founders would come to your office and integrate it for you how nice is that um half because they were just desperate to get anyone
• 08:00 - 08:30 to use it and half because it was a great way to find bugs before the users found bugs uh integrate yourself so these are just three examples of extremely simple extremely fast to build mvps all of these are billion dollar companies and they all started with something that most people would say is pretty shitty in very few cases you have to build a heavy mvp i just invented that term heavy mvp when i made this presentation two days ago so uh
• 08:30 - 09:00 you know maybe it becomes a thing if you're in an industry with significant regulation like insurance or banking um sometimes drones although sometimes not um it's hard to launch it's it's harder to launch you have to pass through a bunch of regulatory bodies first if you're doing hard tech if you're building rockets it is hard to build a rocket in a couple weeks biotech it is hard to invent a cancer drug in a couple weeks moonshots well fill in all the other blanks it's hard to
• 09:00 - 09:30 bore tunnels in the earth and have extremely fast vehicles that replace cars in a couple weeks so if you're in that situation um please remember that your mvp can start with a simple simple website that explains what you do um it's helpful when you talk to people interact with people that they can refer back to something so that can be your start and you can build that simple website in days not weeks so many ways maybe your heavy mvps are
• 09:30 - 10:00 faster than your lean mbps in some weird strange way now i want to talk about launching for a second because a lot of founders have this misconception about launching um they see big companies launch stuff and they assume that's what startups do in fact they see companies they kind of think about like startups facebook's not really a startup anymore but they see them getting a lot of press and getting a lot of buzz and yadda yadda and they have in their head that that's what a successful company looks like when they launch well let me ask you this question um how many here remember
• 10:00 - 10:30 the day that google launched no how about facebook um okay how about twitter no great so it turns out that launches aren't that special at all okay so if you have this magical idea of your magical launch you want to do throw it away it's not that special the number one thing that's really important is to get some customers so to make people feel better let's use different terms how about
• 10:30 - 11:00 launch is when you get any customers and how about like press launch press launch really impressive is when like people write about things and it's all exciting and you get all this buzz let's push the press launch off and let's push the get any customers launch really really soon that's our goal here it's a lot harder to learn from your customers when they don't have a product they can play with you know you can talk to your customer all day but you have no idea whether the thing you want to build can solve their
• 11:00 - 11:30 problem if you put the thing in front of them and it doesn't solve their problem you know right away and so all the research in the world is good but until you can put something in front of people you have no freaking idea whether it's going to work so spending all that time on a pitch deck is not as valuable as spending your time building anything that you can give to a customer finally some hacks for building an mvp extremely quickly first time box your spec so your spec is the list of stuff you need to build
• 11:30 - 12:00 before you launch time box it say okay what happens if i want to launch in three weeks okay well the only things that could be on my spec are things i can build in three weeks that makes your life a lot simpler it allows you to remove all the features you can't build in three weeks second write your spec this seems really straightforward but most people this one up it's really easy to change what you're working on before you ever launch it because you never write it down you start working on something
• 12:00 - 12:30 you talk to a user they say oh i would never use that or god forbid you talk to an investor and they say oh that could never be a company because investors know everything and so you decide to change what you're working on and because you never wrote it down you don't even really realize you're changing it and so your three week plan turns into a three month plan if you write down at least you can be honest with yourself that you're changing your spec all the time the next one is cut your spec a week into your kind of three week sprint you probably realize that you added too
• 12:30 - 13:00 many things to your spec and you're not gonna make your deadline that's okay just cut the stuff that clearly isn't important and if there's no non-important things start cutting important things most of the goal here is just to get anything out in the world once you get anything out in the world the momentum to keep anything going is extremely strong once you have any once you if you don't have anything out in the world it's very easy to just delay delay delay delay and then last don't fall in love with your mvp so many people
• 13:00 - 13:30 fall in love with the vision in their head and none of the products i showed you before was the initial vision of what it ended up being so please don't fall in love with your mvp um it's just step one in a journey you wouldn't fall in love with a paper you wrote in the first grade and like that's like the level of impact often your mvp has all right it was great talking to all of you thank you very much
• 13:30 - 14:00 you