00:08 all right uh today I'd like to talk to
00:11 you about how to build an MVP or a
00:15 minimum viable product so if you haven't
00:18 seen this before this is a meme that we
00:21 love to talk about when trying to help
00:24 founders with their MVP it's called the
00:26 midwit meme the person who is the Jedi
00:29 these super intelligent the founder
00:32 who's doing all the best things and
00:33 knows all the best things and the idiot
00:35 the first time founder the founder who
00:38 has no idea what's going on many times
00:40 these two Founders will actually come to
00:43 the right decision before the founder
00:46 who is really smart and is trying to
00:48 work really hard and do everything right
00:50 and so in this situation with the MVP
00:53 the best advice is to actually
00:57 launch something quickly
00:59 and iterate get a product into the hands
01:03 and then learn whether it helps them or
01:05 doesn't and then iterate it improve it
01:07 over time the wrong answer is to do 100
01:11 surveys and 600 user interviews and
01:14 contact every single one of the
01:16 competitors and spend you know a year
01:18 fundraising and hire 100 people and you
01:22 know all these other things that you can
01:24 distract yourself with that it might
01:27 appear like other smart things
01:28 but in reality they really don't
01:32 highlight the most important point about
01:34 an MVP which is you'd only really start
01:37 learning about your user when you put a
01:39 product in front of it that doesn't mean
01:40 that the thing you build in RVP is going
01:42 to work right it's probably not going to
01:44 work it's just the best way to start the
01:46 conversation with the user and how you
01:48 can solve their problems so to summarize
01:51 the goal that you should have as an
01:54 early stage founder is you should be
01:55 getting a product out into the world
01:57 quickly minimum viable product second
02:00 you should be talking to some initial
02:03 customers and trying to figure out what
02:05 you can do to make that product useful
02:07 for them you should care
02:10 about how to help them accomplish their
02:12 goals and you should try to figure out
02:14 how can I change and iterate my product
02:17 so that it actually helps them
02:18 accomplish those goals and then rinse
02:21 and repeat talk to more users iterate
02:24 your product talk to more users iterate
02:26 your product more often than not after
02:28 three four five six iterations your VP
02:31 is going to be very different you have
02:33 learned so much but by having that
02:36 conversation with users and by letting
02:38 them see your product evolve you can
02:40 actually make them more excited more
02:42 likely to use your product more likely
02:43 to pay for your product and you can
02:46 learn 10 times more than just talking
02:48 your co-founders or thinking about in
02:51 your head so the challenge today is that
02:54 a lot of people are knocking MVPs a lot
02:57 of people are talking about minimum
02:59 lovable products or minimum useful
03:02 products and honestly a lot of Founders
03:04 actually just want to build you know God
03:07 level products you know the Steve Jobs
03:09 level make the iPhone and change the
03:12 world there's this misconception that
03:15 starting with something small that might
03:17 not work very well is a bad idea there
03:20 are a lot of people who worry that if
03:22 you start with something small and you
03:24 give it to a customer and the customer
03:25 doesn't like the product you'll never be
03:27 able to talk to them again what I will
03:28 tell you is this in most cases the
03:31 people who are interested in talking to
03:32 a startup are early adopters they're
03:35 used to using products that don't work
03:39 and the reason why they're talking to
03:41 you is not because they think your
03:42 product's going to work great it's
03:44 because they have a real problem and
03:46 they're open to using new software so
03:49 you don't have to worry about losing
03:52 these people these are the kind of
03:53 people who try new products all the time
03:55 these are the kinds of people if you
03:57 tell them hey look I can't promise it's
03:58 going to work perfectly from day one but
04:02 if you keep working with me we'll make
04:03 it better and make it better and I'll
04:04 make sure it works for you over time
04:06 these are the kinds people respond to
04:08 that pitch it turns out the people who
04:10 will run away after seeing your product
04:12 break and never use you again they're
04:14 never going to try your product in the
04:15 first place they're not early adopters
04:17 they don't use new software so you don't
04:20 have to worry about losing those people
04:22 because you never had them you're not
04:24 going to get them to get started now one
04:27 of the things we have to work on at YC a
04:29 lot is fear and this is the biggest fear
04:33 that Founders have it's a non-specific
04:35 fear of oh my God if I give people my
04:38 product and they don't like it boom my
04:41 company dies and it's always like
04:42 hilarious because when we think about
04:44 this it's like well your company doesn't
04:46 actually die right like it doesn't die
04:48 tomorrow it's not like game over you
04:50 haven't run out of money all your
04:51 co-founders are gonna quit whenever we
04:53 encounter these Fierce scenarios we like
04:56 to dig in and kind of ask like well what
04:58 would actually happen like imagine the
05:00 worst case scenario you do talk to a
05:01 customer you do demo your product it
05:03 doesn't work they don't want to use it
05:06 you wake up the next day is anything
05:09 that different can't you reach out to
05:10 someone else can't you reach back out to
05:13 that customer who you demo to a week
05:14 later when you've made the product
05:15 better is your startup actually dead
05:18 more often than not when you have this
05:21 fear what you should be doing is kind of
05:23 leaning into it and asking yourself is
05:24 this fear real is my company actually
05:26 going to die if this scary thing happens
05:28 and it's not bad to feel the fear but it
05:32 is bad to act on it it is bad to spend
05:34 one year building your MVP because
05:36 you're afraid the first customer might
05:38 not like it now there's another group of
05:42 I know what the perfect product is and I
05:45 know it's going to take a year to build
05:46 why would I build shitty versions of it
05:49 I like to call these folks fake Steve
05:52 Jobs and it's really a massive
05:55 misconception of what great product
05:57 people do a lot of people thought of
06:00 Steve Jobs as the kind of person who
06:01 could just imagine great products in his
06:03 mind and then bring them out into the
06:05 world but what's funny is that most of
06:08 the time when people think about the
06:10 products that Steve Jobs is most known
06:12 for let's say the iPod and let's say the
06:15 iPhone people don't take enough time to
06:18 at all of the different iterations of
06:20 those products over time often when
06:22 someone tells me like oh well you know
06:23 Steve Jobs released an amazing phone
06:25 first time I say well do you remember
06:27 that the iPhone started without an app
06:28 store do you remember you couldn't take
06:30 video with the first iPhone do you
06:32 remember the first iPhone only had 2G
06:34 and not 3G so it really really really
06:37 bad internet like most people don't
06:39 remember that most people the iPhone
06:41 that they actually think of as an iPhone
06:43 was like the third or fourth iteration
06:46 of the iPhone the first version of the
06:47 iPod had like an actual physical
06:49 scrolling device where like Sam would
06:51 get stuck into it and it would break all
06:53 the time even the great Steve Jobs
06:56 iterated his products over time so if
07:00 you find yourself being a fake Steve
07:02 Jobs thinking I know exactly what the
07:04 customer needs I just needs to raise 10
07:07 million dollars and spend a year
07:08 building it and then launch it think
07:09 again right like if Steve Jobs needed
07:12 multiple tries to get his products right
07:15 maybe you need to as well next let's
07:17 look at some examples and in all these
07:19 examples you're going to see three
07:21 pretty simple points first
07:24 all of these products were fast to build
07:27 they could get out of the market quickly
07:29 second they all had very limited
07:32 functionality the third and
07:34 interestingly enough all these products
07:36 appealed to a small set of users these
07:39 Founders realized that just making
07:40 something that is smog for people's
07:42 loved was far more important than making
07:44 something that could address all the
07:45 needs of all potential customers from
07:47 day one so here's what the first version
07:49 of Airbnb looked like and if you were a
07:52 user when Airbnb first launched here are
07:55 some of the fun things that you didn't
07:59 there were no payments if you found a
08:01 place on Airbnb you couldn't pay for it
08:04 there you had to arrange for payment
08:07 there was no map view so there was no
08:10 way for you to actually see where the
08:12 places were in the city that's a pretty
08:15 three even more funny you had to stay on
08:19 an air bed like you couldn't rent out
08:20 your whole house you couldn't rent out a
08:22 room in your house then fourth the first
08:24 version of Airbnb only worked for
08:26 conferences they would literally spin it
08:28 up in a city when there was a conference
08:30 when the conference was over they'd spin
08:32 it down that was Airbnb to start that
08:35 was the MVP here's a second example this
08:37 one's my company twitch twitch started
08:40 as a site named Justin TV where my
08:42 co-founder Justin had a camera on his
08:44 head the broadcast 24 7. in the first
08:47 version of twitch there was only one
08:49 page the page that you're seeing here
08:52 there's only one streamer
08:54 his name is Justin there's no video
08:57 games except for like we randomly would
08:59 play video games sometimes like uh
09:01 Guitar Hero or something like that
09:03 and streaming was ridiculously expensive
09:06 we were paying a CDN we hadn't built our
09:08 video system yet but this was the first
09:10 version of our product now when you go
09:12 to Twitch it's completely different but
09:14 this is where it started finally we have
09:16 stripe this was the first version of
09:18 stripe back then it didn't even have the
09:20 name stripe it was called slash depth
09:22 payments back then they had no fancy
09:24 Bank deal they were working with a tiny
09:26 Bank there was literally no direct apis
09:30 with that bank for setting up accounts
09:32 so they'd have to call the bank and
09:34 every night file manual paperwork for
09:36 you to get your account set up
09:38 and there are almost no features in
09:42 the first version of stripe was so basic
09:44 that even us back in the day at twitch
09:47 couldn't use it because didn't have
09:49 enough features but the folks who could
09:51 use it were early stage YC startups who
09:54 all they wanted to do was accept simple
09:56 credit card payments from their
09:57 customers that's all stripe did in the
09:59 beginning and that was more than enough
10:01 to get started so you might ask yourself
10:03 who are these people who actually want
10:06 to use crappy MVPs you're telling us
10:09 that they're going to be built fast
10:11 they're going to probably not work that
10:12 well and we're gonna have to iterate the
10:14 hell out of them in order to actually
10:15 make them good who are these early
10:18 adopters who'd want to go through that
10:19 experience there's this fun analogy that
10:22 I was told as an early stage founder it
10:24 was you want to build your first version
10:26 for customers who have their hair on
10:28 fire and it never quite understood what
10:30 that meant I mean like it makes sense I
10:32 guess but I always find it more useful
10:34 when I attached a story to it so imagine
10:37 that you are a person
10:39 and your hair is on fire right now as
10:43 you're watching this now imagine if I
10:44 was sitting in the room next to you what
10:46 is the thing that you wish I could sell
10:49 you to solve this problem your hair is
10:52 currently on fire probably most of you
10:54 will think some version of a bucket of
10:57 hose some kind of water thing now that
11:01 is a great product that's like the
11:03 iPhone today that would solve your
11:04 product immediately I don't have that
11:07 I'm a Founder I've got an MVP what I'm
11:10 selling is a brick now what would you do
11:13 if I was selling you a brick now some of
11:16 you are like well I would you know I
11:18 would leave the room like I couldn't use
11:19 a brick your hair's on fire you
11:23 would buy that brick and you would
11:25 hit yourself on the head with the brick
11:27 to smother the fire that's an MVP it's
11:32 not the perfect solution but you are in
11:35 so much pain as a customer you will use
11:37 a non-perfect solution to solve your
11:40 problem that's the customer you should
11:42 be going after for customers who are not
11:44 desperate you can wait you don't have to
11:48 just go after the desperate ones first
11:50 don't make your life a lot easier now I
11:54 um especially those who've gone to
11:55 business school I know a lot of you have
11:57 said I can skip this step
11:59 instead of building an MVP iterating
12:03 iterating why don't I just survey my
12:06 users why don't I just talk to 100 users
12:09 and they'll tell me what to build I wish
12:11 this was the case I wish that users
12:14 could just tell you what to build and
12:17 then if you built those things you'd win
12:19 in fact I think every business wished
12:21 that was the case here's the problem
12:23 your customers are experts in their
12:26 problem but they actually don't have all
12:29 of the answers at how to solve their
12:32 that's your job that's the job of the
12:34 person who's building a new product
12:35 surveys might help you understand the
12:39 pain that your customer is going through
12:40 but they will never help you figure out
12:43 how to solve that pain the only time
12:46 that you start having that conversation
12:48 with the customer is when you can put a
12:50 product in front of them
12:52 preferably a crappy MVP and start saying
12:55 does this solve your problem I haven't
12:58 really seen a shortcut to this step I
13:02 haven't seen a shortcut of building
13:04 pretty fast that's pretty crappy to get
13:08 started and even for larger companies
13:10 even for enterprise software companies
13:12 if you go back in time the first
13:14 versions of their product they were not
13:16 perfect they were far from it they were
13:19 the minimum that those customers were
13:21 willing to use so across the entire
13:24 board you gotta start with the minimum
13:26 viable product I think one of the most
13:28 important points that I want to leave
13:30 you with is that you don't start your
13:33 startup with all the answers
13:35 building a startup especially the first
13:38 phase of building a startup pre-product
13:39 Market fit is all about learning it's
13:43 all about taking some of the insights
13:44 that you start with bringing them to the
13:47 market and learning most of the
13:50 solutions most of the best parts of
13:53 product to use today were discovered
13:55 after those products were launched when
13:57 those Founders were learning from their
13:59 users and building and launching MVP is
14:02 the fastest way to start the process of
14:05 and the faster you learn the more likely
14:08 you are to build something that people
14:09 love before anyone else
14:12 so let's say I've convinced you that now
14:15 you actually want to build an MVP
14:17 how do you make sure you do it quickly
14:19 here are some tricks one
14:22 give yourself a very specific deadline
14:26 it's a lot easier to make sure that
14:29 you're building something that's the
14:30 minimum viable product if you give
14:31 yourself two weeks or a month or a month
14:34 and a half to complete it versus if you
14:37 don't give yourself a deadline second
14:40 write down your spec if you think that
14:43 there are five or ten features required
14:46 in order to launch an MVP write them all
14:51 don't put yourself in the position we
14:54 are constantly trying to figure out
14:56 should we have that feature should we
14:57 not have that feature I don't remember
14:59 the feature we talked about the other
15:00 day how should it look how should it
15:03 work if you write it down then you can
15:05 just focus on building instead of
15:07 continuously debating what should be
15:08 built number three cut that's back after
15:11 you write all that stuff down go through
15:13 each one of those items and ask yourself
15:15 there's a truly desperate customer need
15:17 that feature to start
15:19 you're probably surprised at how many
15:21 features you can leave off for the
15:22 second third or fourth version of your
15:25 and just get the basic stuff out first
15:27 and then number four and most important
15:31 don't fall in love with your MVP
15:34 It's Gonna Change you're going to
15:36 iterate it it's going to get very very
15:38 very different over time you want to do
15:41 it fast and you don't want to fall in
15:42 love with it you want to fall in love
15:44 with your customer with your user not in
15:46 love with the crappy initial product
15:48 that you're building to start learning
15:50 from that user all right so hopefully
15:53 you don't need any more convincing you
15:56 understand that the simplest and easiest
15:59 and the smartest and most Jedi path is
16:02 to build and launch your product and
16:04 then iterate it and so I wish you all a
16:07 lot of good luck and while you're
16:09 building remember one thing it's far
16:11 better to have a hundred people love
16:15 than a hundred thousand who kind of like
16:17 it so when you're releasing that mvp
16:20 it's totally okay to do things that
16:22 don't scale and recruit those initial
16:24 customers one at a time
16:27 if you care about those customers I
16:29 promise you they will talk to you that
16:32 you can work with them and you can help
16:34 them figure out how to solve their
16:35 problems and as a result help figure out
16:38 how to build a great product for them
16:39 thank you very much and good luck
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