A quick introduction to basic business concepts aimed at engineers and all who wish a simple and quick explanation. Part 3 in the series is covering the concept of a Minimum Viable Product.

1. BUSINESS FOR ENGINEERS:
MINUMUM VIABLE PRODUCTS
Jan Isakovic
@iYan

2. THE STORY SO FAR
2
Short
Long Sales cycle
Has a
budget
Assembled
a solution out
of parts
Been actively
looking for a solution
Is aware of having a problem
Has a problem

3. THE STORY SO FAR
• Customers may want other features
once they can actually buy the product
• This requires new product
development
• How can we optimize this effort?
• Answer: Lean development and MVPs
• The topic of this workshop!
Sales
Engineering
Sales
Engineering
Customer identifies a
problem
Solution design
Solution feedback
Product development
Product sales
Sales

4. MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT
• Coined by Eric Ries, author of Lean Startup
• Not a demo, but a PRODUCT: it has features and
a price.
• “Sacrifice short term pain for long term gain”
• Allows us to test our assumptions

5. “LOW-FIDELITY” MVP
“I have my first lo-fi MVP up at
http://thinknaturalhealth.com/Get-Guts-to-Glory/
I am testing how many people will click on the
"Add to Cart" button, and if I get at least 1%
response rate, then I will go ahead and make the
actual product.”

6. DROPBOX MVP
In parallel with their product development efforts, the
founders wanted feedback from customers about what
really mattered to them. In particular, Dropbox needed to
test its leap- of- faith question: if we can provide a superior
customer experience, will people give our product a try?
Source: TechCrunch

7. DROPBOX MVP
Video URL

8. DROPBOX MVP
“It drove hundreds of thousands of people to
the website. Our beta waiting list went from
5,000 people to 75,000 people literally
overnight. It totally blew us away.”

9. FOOD ON THE TABLE MVP
• Company provides software that creates weekly meal plans and
grocery lists of food your family likes, then hooks into your local
grocery stores to find the best deals on the ingredients for a weekly
subscription fee
• Elements:
• Meal database; Recipes based on desired preparation time, money, health,
variety; Recommendation engine; Up-to-date databases of grocery store
inventory and prices; Defining and printing purchase lists
• How would you test such a service?

10. “CONCIERGE” MVP
• One customer, one store, two men - the CEO and VP of product
• Go to stores and interview potential customers; try and sell the service
(for the weekly fee) until they get a customer
• Visit the customer personally each week, go to stores and get coupons,
prepare recipes for the user - and collect the $9,95 per week
• “They were not building the software; but, each week, they were learning
more and more about what was required to make their product a success”
Source 1 Source 2

11. 2 YEARS LATER
Source

12. How could you use the MVP concept at your company?

13. BUSINESS FOR ENGINEERS
1: Customers and sales 4: Value proposition
2: Product conception 5: Core competencies
3: Minimum Viable Product 6: Company values
Jan Isakovic
@iYan