YC SUS: Michael Seibel and Eric Migicovsky discuss How to Launch an MVP
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Eric is the course facilitator at Startup School. Michael is a partner at Y Combinator helping answer questions. They answer questions about MVPs from the forum, diving in with tailored advice.
Zephyrus is an analytics platform for competitive gamers providing game-specific tools and data to analyze, track, and improve performance. One-liner is clear, especially for those in the space, gets a solid A-.
Consumers Expect More Than Scrappy MVP with Existing Competitors
Consumers should not expect more than a scrappy MVP since startups struggle to build polished products. Find a small population with unsolved problems willing to use something bad—that's a good sign. If users need a polished product even for 10-100 users, competitors are doing well.
Hack: Layer MVP on existing product, e.g., Chrome extension overlaying extra data on software gamers already use for Starcraft 2 analysis. Test hypothesis with least effort: is it important enough for people to care?
Clarify one-liner: "We make software for property managers to automate billing, customer care, and maintenance." Specify efficiency gains, e.g., manage 1 property to 5 or 5 to 15.
Avoid Making Service Too Specific vs. Building Universal Platform
If you have industry knowledge (e.g., former property manager), use insights for general problems. If not, building for first 5 customers educates you—may be expensive, but necessary.
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