A minimum viable product has just those features that allow the product to be deployed, and no more. It’s a product development approach popularised by Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. Inc magazine calls it a ‘scientific method for launching profitable companies’.
Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson has just published a different and more humorous take on the lean startup. It centres around a product’s voice and is dubbed ‘minimum viable personality’. A few lines:
HAVE PERSONALITY EASY. ANSWER THREE QUESTIONS:
- HOW YOU CHANGE CUSTOMER’S LIFE?
- WHAT YOU STAND FOR?
- WHO OR WHAT YOU HATE? NOW HAVE MISSION, VALUES, ENEMY. THAT ENOUGH FOR MINIMUM VIABLE PERSONALITY. KEEP IN BRAIN WHEN WRITE, TALK, BLOG, TWEET. ITERATE. IMPROVE WHAT WORK. DELETE WHAT NOT. PERSONALITY GROW.
An amusing point of view but the principles are there. It’s worth a read.
