$18k for an MVP?! That is a LOT of money.
Built in Meteor - which is one of the easiest ways for non-devs to start coding IMO (I even made a few sites with it)
I think it would be a major red-flag for any future investors if founders went to them and said they spent $18k on an MVP. It's the 'easy' (& expensive) way out. I think it shows personality flaws on the founders part.
First iterations should be built by the founders or cost next to nothing (time will be the big cost) - but I think it's important for founders to show the determination, show they can see things through and have a basic understanding of what a development process looks like at least.
Also, with products like Bubble, Weld Websites, Webflow and others, there are so many ways to easily create/replicate sites at ease for a decent MVP.
@bentossell | Hey Ben, so I have to respectfully disagree with you as you've respectfully disagreed with Ria. ;)
The first thing I'll mention is that the types of MVPs we're building couldn't ever be built in something like Webflow (which our creative agency uses quite frequently). Tiller Labs builds web apps, from design to UX to code. As we've compared prices, we've found that the average cost paid for an MVP *can* be much lower or it could trail up into the $30-$50k range.
The second thing I'll mention is that your comments (while I'm sure are well intentioned!) are also not applicable to everyone. I don't develop applications as I'm on the design side of the equation, which is why it would have been impossible for me to get my startup launched on my own as you suggested. I tried partnering, paying top dollar and even outsourcing via E-lance to India. It took 2+ years and 4 rounds of developers.
Tiller Labs was born out of that frustration and my realization that having my MVP and getting it back in my hands within 30 days was well worth the this price tag. In the end, I put far more money into my MVP + time + energy than $18k. Of course, there are those who can build a web app from scratch and we absolutely encourage that!
And last, we love Meteor and we're doing some pretty powerful things with it. ;)
Appreciate your input, man! If you have any more comments/questions please feel free to leave it here!
@nateembrey Understood and maybe some, more complex MVPs can't be built in other applications. But I do think an MVP should be as simple as possible.
Of course I understand that it's not for everyone and I was coming from the standpoint of the tech-startup community, in which there are always a variety of views anyway.
I don't code (like at all) and I tried learning but felt I could be using my time best elsewhere. I joined a few slack groups and within 3 months I had one of the best makers on Product Hunt develop my site for me. I didn't have to pay a penny and I went from idea to launch in around 3-4 months (now one of the top performing sites on the whole of Product Hunt). Again I understand this situation doesn't stand for everyone but I strongly believe that if you are in this startup world then you can quite easily get help without the fuss, hassle and cost if you look in the right places and go by the mantra of give value without expecting anything back.
Anyway, that comes from my story and many things I've read - but not shrugging off that certain use-cases would benefit from this service.
Do you offer any other tiers? So for example if I'd built a simple web app in one of the services mentioned before, and wanted you to just help give it that extra edge?
Also, what is the most common piece of feedback you've received from past customers?
@gaiapunk I attempted to learn to code last year. Made a few applications badly. Got stuck, gave up.
If you sat me down now and told me to open command line, I wouldn't know what to start typing. Hence - I don't code.
@nateembrey@bentossell I actually think the major issue with all of this is using a silly word like MVP and thinking this term actually translates to every single product offering imaginable, in addition to it's association with founders and them getting real world feedback as soon as possible to build for market fit.
Minimum viable product...Apples MVP for the iPhone was a giant computer with a huge chunk of glass looked nothing like a "cell phone".
The goal is not about getting a version 1 or a version 10 out asap that has the title of an "MVP"... It is about time, and it is about resources...it is validating market fit as soon as possible and doing so by spending the least amount of money as possible. Both are not mutually exclusive.
I think anytime we try and go about this in the sense that we can separate market fit from the MVP or that we can spend $18,000 and it translates into a perfect product or a usable one is where they point gets blurry.
It's hard to built a business any business and I believe Ben's comment which was really his insight given he's seen countless startups, fail and fail well because they don't maximize their resources. I should know being that I'm a product designer and have been doing that for 10 years and ran a design firm and I've seen countless clients want to pay me $xx,xxx-$xxx,xxx on stuff even as an MVP not even on the development side of things on stuff they need to first get to market and test the fit.
marketing has never ever saved a bad product...you can't buy people and so you can't buy business sucess so I think knowing what you're getting into and not just thinking $18k solves every issue and means you will have a killer app or idea because you blew almost $20k is all I think we're getting at.
We all want the same thing for people to excel and succeed and offering tools and services to empower them to do so...but it's still up to these people to know what they are getting themselves into so I think the educational side of things needs to be more apparent if this is to really change especially for those who aren't technical and simply ignore this and just go and hack things on their own.
I think one of the biggest issues that faces non-technical founders is finding someone to help them build their idea; sometimes this alone can take months. The whole point of an MVP is that it's shipped as quickly as possible so you can start validating, so I think this is a great idea. It's obviously not going to be the best solution for everyone, especially if they're fortunate enough to have a founding team that ticks all the boxes skills-wise, but if it comes down to spending $18k (providing you have it) versus potentially wasting a lot of time hunting for a developer to join your team, it's definitely worth thinking about as an option. I also love Tiller Labs' own website; it gives me confidence that they'd be able to build something that looks pretty sweet!
@bentossell I'm sure you're not the only one :) I'd definitely be interested to hear the founders' take on your comments, but I personally know a couple of people who really struggled to find a technical co-founder and had no option but to outsource. One of these was an older lady who believes that people were put off by her age (and, to a lesser degree, gender); she had funding based on her concept and ended up spending well in excess of $18k for her MVP. As I said, it's definitely not for everyone, but as a concept (quick, on-tap MVPs), I think it's potentially an option for some.
@riaface true. I guess I was not particularly thinking of people not in the tech-startup world. I still stand by my points but agreed that in some cases this could be an option.
Although a lot of people like building stuff for free, but you do have to invest time into getting to know people/communities/etc
@riaface +1. As a non-technical founder, I don't see this as a lazy way out of doing the hard work of building a startup. It's a way for someone with an idea to get it built and start validating it. Like Ben, I've dabbled with learning to code, but my time is better spent doing the things I'm already good at rather than suffering through learning to code or jumping from technical co-founder to technical co-founder. I don't see the value in suffering for the sake of suffering, just so that I can earn my "I worked real hard" startup merit badge. The MVP is step one, there's still plenty of hard work to be done and plenty of opportunity to get my startup street cred.
@nateembrey I don't think an MVP is supposed to cost 18k. I'm not trying to say anything about what you're trying to do but preferably your MVP should be almost free. You can use another service to provide the end result of your "product".
I'm going to use Ryan Hoover's (@ryanhoover) example of an MVP. When he started PH as an email list he used a service called linkydink. What linkydink does is allow people to contribute links to an email that will then be email to a group of subscribers. What this did is give people a feeling of what PH was going to be like and Ryan didn't even have to spend a dime. He hustled to get his first users by cold email and inviting people to join. This brings me to my next point.
I'm going to quote Paul Graham here. He talks a lot about doing things that don't scale. Why am I saying this? because your MVP should not be ready to scale if ever your product goes viral. Your MVP should be able to convey to you target customer what your product does and how it feels like using it.
All this to say, it doesn't matter if you're MVP looks like crap and can't support a thousand users on day one. And it most certainly shouldn't cost 18k
@ghiliweld | Hey man, you do have a point here and, at the same time, I have to be straightforward in saying that you're also missing a point as well. Let me explain.
Some startups can do what you're proposing. Totally. Ryan Hoover can start Product Hunt with a mailing list, much like my close friend @davidsherry36 did with his company, Death to the Stock Photo. If you can do that, or you can create your proof of concept in any other form...you 100% should.
Other startups, like Boomerang which we took to MVP and are iterating on now, cannot do this. If you need to test an app with a small group of early adopters to get feedback and iterate rapidly (the MVP model as defined in The Lean Startup) and that app needs to allow users to upload photos and manage how they display, then display those photos to an end user (a client of your client) and allow that user to engage with them by way of liking/sorting/downloading/etc, then you need a custom built app and it's going to cost you money. At least if you're not a developer yourself.
Last, the problem I see with your position is that you're proposing to know what MVP really means for every situation and every person. But that's not how this works. MVPs need to be different things for different folks, and for the ones who need something that BY ITS NATURE requires that it be more than a mailing list, then (by your definition) they'd be out of luck forever.
We're using the term MVP and being bold in our messaging because we chose to. That's the bottom line. We're know MVPs aren't one-size-fits-all and we know that the product we've put together here won't fit every application or every budget, but it will fit some. I'll say again what I've said a dozen times in this thread already: had I gone this route with my startup instead of trying what's being suggested here, I would have saved upwards of $20k, gotten far more sleep, started generating feedback and revenues faster AND would have been weeks and months ahead of my competition by way of the turnaround we're proposing.
I do appreciate your feedback, but we're talking about 2 fundamentally different types of businesses and MVPs that they my need. My MVP was version 1.0 and that's a valid way of pushing into the market. Other MVPs are version 0 or .1, etc...and that's valid too.
I think we need to leave some space for each founder/startup to interpret terms and needs themselves and if the shoe fits, then it's their choice to wear it or not.
Again, this conversation is amazing and we love getting so much robust input from everyone! Thanks, for real! Hope this message lands well.
@nateembrey wow what a great reply. I appreciate how you are staying cool under the criticism here. You know exactly who your product is for and for who it isn't. @bentossell what are your thoughts?
@ghiliweld | Of course! Really appreciate you taking this in context too. :) We care about this a lot. I'm here because I know having it myself would have saved me tons of stress and heartache. Appreciate this thread a TON and we're learning a lot. Have a good rest of your night!
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