In this tutorial, we will learn about the most common types of MVPs: emails, shadow buttons, 404/Coming Soon pages, and explainer videos. These techniques allow you to test your idea without creating an actual product, saving you time and money.

Email MVPs

If you already have an email service and a mailing list of customers or interested people, you can create an Email MVP.

Simply email them a pitch for the product, and see who bites. There’s no actual product, but you can see who is interested.

Pros of Email MVPs:

• Quick and cheap
• You can segment customers into categories
• You’re starting out with a pool of interested users

Cons of Email MVPs:

Now you understand the importance of interviewing your customers to get valuable insights about your idea or product.

But who should you interview, and how can you find them?

Start by identifying your target customers.

Identifying target customers

If you don’t have a product yet, you may not know who your target customer is. But you should have some potential ideas already.

Start by writing down at least three groups of people who have the problem in question. (If you can’t think of anyone with the problem, it’s time to come up with a new product idea.)

Use the following table to choose the best target for your interviews:

User input is essential to make a great product. But you can’t just sit down and have a conversation. Interviews have a specific purpose: to get accurate information.

Your goal is to get answers to the five W’s: who, what, when, where, and why? Deepen your understanding and fill in all the gaps in your knowledge.

You’ll want to follow the four best practices to make sure you get that information.

Best practices

1. Don’t talk about your solution: The point of the interview is not to sell your solution to the customer. The point is to understand your customer. So focus on them and their needs.
2. Don’t bring up your own opinions: You don’t want to influence them in any way, or else the results will be useless. Just ask questions and let them talk. Don’t wo...

To recap the 6 steps to a successful MVP:

1. Determine the problem you’re trying to solve and the solution your product provides.
2. Identify your assumptions about the problem and solution. (Covered in the previous tutorial.)
3. Build testable hypotheses based on your assumptions. (Covered in the previous tutorial.)
4. Figure out how you’ll determine whether the test was successful or not. (Keep reading to learn how.)
5. Pick the best MVP type for your unique situation. (Keep reading to learn how.)
6. Execute the MVP experiment and collect the data. Decide if your hypothesis is true, false, or somewhere in between. (Keep reading to learn how.)

Defining the Minimum Criteria fo...

The product development process is comprised of seven phases:

1. Conception
2. Planning
3. Development
4. Iteration
5. Launch
6. Steady-state
7. Determining the product's future

The first four steps in the process are pre-launch whereas the final three take place during and after launch. This article will walk you through each of the phases to help you become better oriented with the product development process, identify the stage your product is currently in, and help you plan subsequent stages.

Conception