All too often the entrepreneur has a grand vision of how his product should look and how it should work. After spending way too many hours and too many dollars to get the product just right before its debut, when finally introduced the product falls flat. Sometimes assumptions that went into the original design were incorrect. Having spent all of his time and money up front to develop the product, the investor has no more resources to redesign the product and move forward. The product dies a painful death.
The experienced entrepreneur knows that his best path to building a successful product is to build a minimally viable product and put it out there for early adopters to use. Then, based on the early adopters’ feedback, the entrepreneur is able to test his assumptions before having expended all of his time and money. With this new knowledge and feedback, the entrepreneur can pivot the design characteristics to move the product in the right direction.
Therefore, he avoids over-building features users don’t want and can amplify features the user community likes. In the end, this strategy will dramatically improve the entrepreneur’s ability to develop a successful product. When developing a new product, develop a minimally viable product first to test each of your assumptions.
Learn to ride the wave, rather than build the ocean.
