@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!
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 +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.
@chrisgscott@riaface | Thanks Chris, right there with you. This is really the value we're adding and you're saying something that sounds veryyyyyy similar to my experience as a founder as well. I needed this service/product when we were launching and had we had it, we would have been up an entire year and half sooner than we were. And for far less investment than what we ended up making (especially in time and energy).
Appreciate the perspective, friend!
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@riaface I agree with Ria here! I work with early-stage founders as a freelance web developer and encounter this story all the time. Like the woman you mention, there are lots of founders out there who struggle to find the resources they need to build initial products. We the engineering profession are not serving them well. Good for Tiller Labs, they seem to be making progress to make this better.
Hey @alexiscreuzot, thanks for the compliment on the site! As per your agency comment, we certainly are an agency but we're trying to create a product for founders that's an all-in-one solution to the problem of getting a quality application created quickly so that they get do the real work of promoting and testing, etc. This *service* is put together as a package to simplify the process for everyone. Thanks again for the feedback!
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First thought is 18k is a lot of coins for a MVP... Especially since the idea of an MVP is to create something cheap and fast to test against the market. If it works out great! Then you move on from version .1 to 1.0. Spending 18k on a prototype just seems ridiculous.
Are you guys offering a years worth of support as well?
I'm sure if you are building something that a typical dev team would charge 30-50k for, that a non-technical founder wouldn't know where to start for bug fixes (which always happen).
Maybe you guys just need a change in the copy.
I never like to give harsh criticism to any startup. Good luck with your growth. 😉
@dredurr | Thanks for the comment, man. We leave some room for support, of course. And honestly, what we're building for $18k is absolutely closer to the $30-$50k range for a typical team, especially one building in a framework that doesn't allow for rapid development like Meteor.
As I've mentioned a few other places in this thread: the brand of MVP we're making ourselves available to help build is the one that needs to be a bit more robust than something than can live/work in the form of a "website". We're building functioning apps that do everything they need to and nothing that they don't (or maybe some things that they don't) and then letting the founders/owners start the process of vetting that app out so they're next iteration is better/more dialed toward what the customer wants.
We don't really want to have the conversation about .1 or 1.0, etc...because those are all relative. My personal app needed to be a version 1.0 as the MVP because it had so many moving parts and those were ALREADY pulled back to their minimum. So we made that, pushed it, and now we're in the process of iterating on it again.
I totally hear you though, for sure. It's an interesting space and we knew we were being "loud" when we created this tagline for our agency. We did it on purpose to make a clear pitch. Some relationships/projects will be a great fit, others won't...but everyone has an idea what they're in for before they start that conversation with us!
Hope this makes sense. :) Honestly appreciate the feedback a ton.
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I didn't know agencies were allowed on PH! With that said, I launched http://prototypeelf.com/ a few months back :) $5k for an MVP in 3 weeks
@sacbookreviewer@jcsnv | Hey guys. We've already mentioned this above, and while you're right that we're an agency, we also created a very specific product for founders. Super clear what that is in our tagline. A little confused about what feels somewhat like trolling but hey...free market, am I right? Good luck to you both, either way!
@nateembrey@jcsnv Same here. I think what we're talking about is PH has usually only posted things that a user can do or use themselves, with a few major exceptions (thinking of the Book In a Box from last year). So Crew.co hasn't ever been hunted as far as I know, but products they've made have been like their How much does it cost to make an app and not them as an agency directly. What you're offering is pretty much what any shop offers - "pay us and we make something for you" not "here is a tool we've made that let's you do X yourself". I could knock out the same landing page and call it a specific product too.
So we were just having a side conversation about that, not discussing you directly. Happens here.
I've had the idea to market myself in this way for a long time, but I haven't. Unfortunately it ends up being a race to the bottom, and people will sadly usually go with the cheaper solution even if that's worse for them in the long run.
If I were to try to do something like this, I think I'd focus more on the fact that you're getting access to team of experienced makers for a month, who can (and previously have) created some amazing things in that amount time.
Good luck though, as I do think the industry needs to start thinking more about teams that can work well together, rather than hiring a "10x developer", and it looks like you guys are a great team!
@mubashariqbal | Dude, yes. This is exactly where we are. We do have a few others on our team but the brunt of the work is Jason and I and we show up to turn out a quality app that does what it's supposed to in a strong and beautiful way. This resonates with us a lot. Thanks!
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