Do you have an app/business/startup idea? MVP is not your first step

Or, how to fail early

Artem Bugara @bugaralife

The most important lesson learned the hard way after building 2 products over the past year: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUILD MVP TO VALIDATE YOUR PRODUCT Just go ahead and sell your landing page. Worst of all is that I've been told that but though "I am different" #SaaS #indiehackers

July 23rd 2020

Yet another not GPT-3 generated blog post.

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I did not follow the logic I describe in this post, and I did regret it. My first side-project did not get anywhere after Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Here is how I (and you) could know it before writing my first line of code.

The moment you’ve got an idea

We all have these moments when we think we have a product idea worth a million dollars. Fine.

Your product must solve someone’s problem: that is how people may be willing to pay you. If your product is supposed to solve a problem that you are not experiencing yourself then you are already in trouble.

Building a product on a subject/field that you have no expertise will rarely end up as something successful. Like, really rarely. But you still want to proceed. OK.

At least, let me try to help you fail at a low cost.

Sell it

Make a landing. Prepare a one-line description of your solution. Describe your solution. Use your

Imagine MVP is there.

I am not a salesperson. Not an excuse

If you can’t sell it then how do you know what to build? If you can’t sell it then you do not know WHO to sell it to. If you can’t sell it then you are not solving anyone's problem.

There won’t be a mysterious salesperson at your doorstep who will sell for you when you have your MVP ready.

Want to know how sales with and without MVP are different? You still sell the description of your MVP. The presence of MVP does not change a damn thing.

Can’t sell?

Congratulations! You just failed. Early, cheap, wisely. MVP would not change that.

Got some traction?

Congratulations! Build a waitlist.

Have a lot of people on your waitlist? Then, you solution is solving a real problem. Plus, now you are sure who your solution is for.

Go build your MVP.