1、M MinimumV ViableP ProductsWhy they are a life or death matter whenyou are building a live marketplaceWe share the story on how weve built our product Solved.ioon consecutive iterations in order to prevent failure.Hello/my name is TomI learned how important Minimum Viable Products are the hardway:fa
2、iling my first company.My new company,Solved,has an extra difficulty:its a livemarketplace -we connect people facing a software issue withsoftware experts live.In this scenario,building a product on consecutiveiterations is a life or death matter.Heres why-and how to make it right.Building a live ma
3、rketplace/The number one challengewe need to make sure the supply side and the demand sideare validated simultaneouslyand follow the same path of growth.123Supplysoftware expertsSupplysoftware expertsSupplysoftware expertsDemandcollaborators who needhelpDemandcollaborators who needhelpDemandcollabor
4、ators who needhelpFirst MVP/validate the technologyOur pain point:on-site training is not efficient for bigcompanies,and that small companies only haveforums when it comes to software issuesBasic product need:connecting employees withsoftware experts liveFirst Step:make sure we could establish aprop
5、er connection between a client andan expert within a browser using the newWebRTC technologyThis is Solveds very first MVPHow to assess the“V”in Minimum Viable Product at this point?Its a 1 or 0 situation:if your productworks,then you should go on.2nd MVP/fuel the supply sideSolved is supposed to be
6、used with any software butwe reduced the scope to Ms Excel:it has a lot of heavyusers and is complex enough.Basic product need:finding experts.We could havehired some,but it wouldnt have proven that there is ascalable supply(freelancers working remotely).Next Step:crowding experts who areinterested
7、in taking calls and helpingpeople remotely within an on-demandplatform1.Build a landing page2.Drive traffic towards it-Direct marketing:#FAILReach was great but not the directories(software certifications)so it led tofew contacts we couldnt even convert into experts.-Infiltrate communities:#FAILCont
8、acting directly people in Facebook groups,Linkedin groups led to beingbanned by algorithms for phishing.-Social media marketing#SUCCESSAdvertising on Linkedin,targeting skills and on Facebook targetinginterests.That led to amazing conversions and costs of acquisition of$10.How to assess the“V”in Min
9、imum Viable Product at this point?When testing acquisition methods,your key indicator is ROI.That said,even though there was room for improvement toreduce our CACs,there was no time for it so we never improvedanything with this process.3rd MVP/qualify and quantify your supplyWe tried emailing expert
10、s a list of questions:we onlygot a 10%open rate.Then we built an in-appquestionnaire which worked well.We made sure experts were not “paid to wait”byhaving them invest some time and energy on signingup and we nurtured them with newsletters.Next Step:test the experts skills to get aminimum volume and
11、 engage them onour platformHow to assess the“V”in Minimum Viable Product at this point?The key is to avoid vanity metrics.We could have bragged about having 1000s of experts.100 canseem a few but it was enough to prove our point:the experts weneed exist,and they are willing to work with us for$20/ho
12、urbecause we offer great flexibility conditions.4th MVP/fuel your demand accordinglyWe needed to know how we could catch clientsright when they face a software issue to connectthem with an expert.1.Build a landing pagewe actually built several:focused on Excel,Photoshop,etc.2.Drive traffic towards i
13、tUsing Adwords:we bid on keywords like“problem VLOOKUP excel”and got a$10 of CAC with a good potential reach,which was perfect.How to assess the“V”in Minimum Viable Product at this point?Just like the supply side:ROI is yourfriend.5th MVP/qualify and quantify your demandWe could not“stock”any of our
14、 alpha users:once theysigned up,we were supposed to be able to connectthem with an expert.Our technology wasnt ready so we had to use tricks toconnect experts and clients (using live-chat plugins,Skype etc.)We needed to check that our experts could solveour clients issuesLive-chat with aclient on th
15、elanding pageChecking out whichexperts were availableon SkypewhileFour (painful)days laterOur first call!How to assess the“V”in Minimum Viable Product at this point?We realized that our clients had realissues that our experts could fix livewithin 20 minutes.There are many reasons why this could have
16、 been a failure:if theclient had been more expert than our expert,if the client wasreally incapable of anything,if the calls had lasted only 2 minutesor 2 hours.Big victory for us.It showed us we needed to build a kick-ass product to automate the connexion between clients and experts:)To sum up/buil
17、ding a live marketplace meansHandle instant liquidity on both supply&demand.Test acquisition on each side-at a reasonableROI and using scalable methodsTest your first users retentionside.Possibly build your own technology.Uber couldnt use phone lines:they neededtheir magic app!Build your app while testing your supply anddemandFocus on the supply side before the demandIn the meantime,use your imagination!Thank you,we areRead more on our blog.Try solved for free now.
