#mvp #twitter #dropbox

Video MVP of dropbox - [ Ссылка ]

Long ago in 2006, a group of developers led by Jack Dorsey founded Twitter. It was initially named “Twttr” and introduced as an SMS communication channel between employees at Odeo – a podcasting platform. At the stage of MVP, Twitter featured no replies, hashtags, reposts, or direct messages, only SMS messages between the users. On March 21, Jack Dorsey posted his first twit on the platform, saying:


Just setting up my twttr.

Sounds pretty simple, agree? I think that in 2006, Dorsey could not even imagine how successful his idea would become. The article by Business Insider states that each Odeo employee spent hundreds of dollars on SMSs in Twittr – this was the ultimate proof of the viability of this platform. As you see, building an MVP was a really responsible task.

In 2007, Twitter was renamed and developed as a stand-alone social networking platform. At that point, it was perceived as a community of users who would share their answers to “What are you doing?”. Today, the idea has evolved greatly – Twitter is now one of the major sources of news, celebrity rumors, and jokes.

what is an MVP and why do you need one?

A minimum viable product, or MVP, is a product with enough features to attract early-adopter customers and validate a product idea early in the product development cycle. In industries such as software, the MVP can help the product team receive user feedback as quickly as possible to iterate and improve the product. Instead of spending all your capital at one go, you can spend a part of it creating only the core features of your concept and test if it is really worth a shot. You will save a lot of time, energy, and money by creating an MVP, testing it, and adopting changes based on the test results.

Now let's take a look at the different types of MVPs. There are four major types of MVPs. They are, number 1 concierge MVP.

Concierge MVPs involve manually helping your users accomplish their goals as a means of validating whether or not they have a need for what you're offering. Building a product is not even necessary. Manuel Rosso is the CEO of Food on the Table, a product that specialized in generating shopping lists tailored to the individual's needs and preferences. Manuel didn't even have a product or website in the beginning because he would sell the service for $10 a month in-person to shoppers, then generate the recipes and grocery lists for them in person while accompanying them around the store.

Number 2, Landing page MVP

A landing page is a single page that describes your product or service, illustrates some advantages of using your product or services, and contains a button that lets visitors click to read more, join a mailing list, or even buying your product or service.

Joel Gascoigne of Buffer used a landing page to test his concept for his product that automates future posting of social media at optimal times. Joel achieved 120 signups and went on to speak to 50 of these people directly. It's worth noting that picking up the phone to discover more about what customers love about your value proposition is a superb idea. Joel even had a paying customer a couple of days after launching his product from this list. Now Buffer has over $1m a month in recurring revenue.

Number 3, Video MVP

Before building a functional product, you can simply make a video MVP explaining what the product does. Even without using the actual product, watching the video will give enough info for viewers to decide whether they want the product shown.

This is what Drew Houston, the founder of dropbox did. Creating a software prototype for the file-sharing platform was hard. So he created a short video demonstrating its main features and uploaded it to YouTube. It drew hundreds and thousands of views and within a matter of time, their beta waiting grew by thousands. Dropbox became a huge success and Drew knew it even before releasing the software, all thanks to his video MVP. You can find the video link of Dropbox's MVP in the video description.

Number 4, Email MVP

Creating an email takes much less effort than building a product or even a feature within a product. If you have existing customers, then you can begin by manually creating some emails to see if the response to the email is favorable. If it is, then you can proceed to build the related product features.

Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt started off by emailing his idea to a list of people. After receiving rave feedback, he knew the idea was worth pursuing further.

So which MVP are you planning to create for your startup? Comment below. If you're thinking of creating a startup, you're going to need a business plan. Watch this video on lean canvas, the single-page business plan that can work wonders for you. Thanks for watching.

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