Jack Chen

First episode is live! @StakeholderLabs has partnered with @Stocktwits to launch a new exec-interview franchise in our mission to help companies connect with next-gen investors. 🤝

Naval Ravikant on the common thread he sees across the great companies “[They] were extremely deliberate in every early decision that they made. They were not haphazard. And the reason is because they really felt like they were laying the foundation for a 10-year business. None of them were thinking of it as something they would try and flip… I think that unless you’re extremely forward-looking, in it for the long haul, and you ooze that with every fiber of your being, you’re never going to build a great business.” Video Source: @twistartups

Q: Do MVPs still work today since people are accustomed to higher-quality products? @lennysan posed this question to the creator of the MVP concept and author of the revolutionary book The Lean Startup, by @ericries. "MVP is simply for whatever the hypothesis is that we're trying to test, what is the most efficient way to get the validation we need about whether a hypothesis is true or not?" The key is understanding "what are the demands of customers in our market." Even in markets with very high standards, Ries argues, "the cost of offering someone to buy something that they don't like, it's really not that high. They just say no." The real goal of an MVP is "establish a baseline" to measure progress. As Ries explains, "Quality is defined by the customer. And if we don't know who our customer is, we literally don't know what the word quality means." An MVP validates "that we improve from" understanding what quality means to users. "Go find 10 customers, not 10 million. Get them to use the product and have them tell you what's awful. Building a high-quality wrong value prop is nothing to be proud of. There's no craftsmanship in that." TL;DR • MVPs are about efficient hypothesis testing, not any specific tactic. Understand your customers. • The cost of early user dissatisfaction is low - they just say no. Contain risk. • Engage 10 users, not 10 million. Get feedback and establish a baseline. • Quality is defined by the customer. MVPs validate you're building the right thing.