MVPs vs 11-star reviews

It’s easy to get stymied in the early going because you want a shiny impressive product. “Shiny and impressive” often means expensive and time consuming, though. You can delay the vital feedback from your customers / community and drain your resources before you have a chance to edit and improve upon your first attempt. This is where Eric Ries’ minimum viable product idea is so potent and liberating. Make the cheapest workable version of the thing and put it front of people. Doing this, you get that feedback quickly and cheaply. You buy yourself multiple, maybe many, rounds of improvement and adjustment.

MVPs can be too humble though. You elude the risk of blowing your budget on a shiny unwanted thing. But you may instead make a bunch of shabby, modestly desired things that don’t lead far beyond their shabby origins.

A tonic for this is Brian Chesky’s 11-star experience - the Airbnb founder asked his team what would lead to an 11-star review from a guest. An experience so memorable and mind-blowing it shoots right off the scale. What they came up with was wild and infeasible - but that’s kind of the point. You turn the dial hard to the right and you hear things in the mix that might have been subtle or silent before. You can discover in the 11-star exercise an element or approach that really lights your audience up - this element might be the thing, the value, they’re really coming to you for in the first place. And there may be a way to build that element into your shabby MVP without breaking the bank. 

-eric