My strong 'Anti-Lean Startup' take. I partially blame that book on my first failed company. I passively maintain that company now. Sure I was 23 years old, but....
>Showing my first, most loyal customers a MVP ruined my image/branding. Instead of looking professional, I looked like a cheap blog.
>Selling a MVP to these people made them never return as customers. While I stand by the base quality of the product, it didn't have the shine we see in Apple products.
>I see sites in my space that are far worse, and much more popular because of the shine/marketing. I really have the best website from an objective standpoint. The discoverability is a real issue, I mostly grow organically or from SEO.
tl;dr I showed my 95% finished product to the thought leaders, they thought I was unprofessional and couldn't be trusted. Still trying to gain that trust back 10 years later.
There is a lot of luck in figuring out what’s minimum viable. even if you listen closely and deliver what the customers say, there is a good chance they won’t like it when they get it.
But this isn't redefining the term. Running experiments to discover what's most important, then focusing on building to solve for that is the whole point.
If you get far enough along where you're not able to iterate with well-regarded design partners out of the gate, you've messed up somewhere along the minimum and/or viable spectrum.
>Showing my first, most loyal customers a MVP ruined my image/branding. Instead of looking professional, I looked like a cheap blog.
>Selling a MVP to these people made them never return as customers. While I stand by the base quality of the product, it didn't have the shine we see in Apple products.
>I see sites in my space that are far worse, and much more popular because of the shine/marketing. I really have the best website from an objective standpoint. The discoverability is a real issue, I mostly grow organically or from SEO.
tl;dr I showed my 95% finished product to the thought leaders, they thought I was unprofessional and couldn't be trusted. Still trying to gain that trust back 10 years later.