TEI 007: Simple Steps for Using the Minimal Viable Product Approach

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you another episode of The Everyday Innovator.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in developing and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

Our Guest:  Andrew Warner is the master of learning from entrepreneurs. As the founder of Mixergy, he has interviewed over 1000 entrepreneurs, sharing what they did to become successful. Prior to Mixergy, he was an accomplished entrepreneur with an internet business selling greeting cards that generated over $30M/year in revenue. However, his path was not always paved with successes – he learned from his costly failures and mistakes – and eventually created Mixergy to discover how successful products and companies are created.

Highlights from the discussion include:

• Product innovators and entrepreneurs struggle with the “counter-mind” that tells us our plans will not work
• An example of the “counter-mind” is wanting to go for a run but your counter-mind telling you that you don’t have time, or knowing that you need to contact customers but your counter-mind telling you that they won’t be interested
• After spending $300,000 developing an invitation system for events, Andrew realized it was a failure. He had not asked for feedback on the product concept before developing it
• Talk with potential customers about the product concept to learn about their real problems and how your product can provide value
• Use an iterative approach to develop and refine product concepts, learning from customers as you go
• Andrew shared his minimal viable product (MVP) approach he used for creating a training product.