What problem will your MVP solve?

This is the discussion that all first time founders need to hear

My favorite quote ever: "Fall in love with the problem, not the solution". I've been a software engineer for over 22 years and it wasn't until I learned about MVP 5 years ago that I felt like I was making a real difference. This video is one of the greatest videos I've seen on MVP. Very well done!

Stripe: 2010 Twitch: 2007 AirBnb: 2008 iPhone: 2007 I believe that a lot of the fundamentals you lay down are true, but I think there's a much higher level of execution expected by consumers now vs 15 years ago. While the "back in the day" stories are fun, I hope you can provide us with more recent examples, given your exposure to those startups through YC.

These videos have saved me years and so much money/potential regrets - I would have fallen for so many of these traps, and I can see how much closer I am to my goals, and it's helped me make so much more money, for free! Thank you guys for putting this material out there. Thank you Michael!

I've been in love with my MVP for many years and haven't launched yet 😭😂 I learnt a lot from this video. AirBnb, Twitch, Stripe also started from the bottom, improved gradually whilst they were learning from their users. Thank you Michael

I cannot believe KZfaq is such a useful tool for mere mortals like myself. You can pretty much learn anything here.

I’m so emotional about this😢, thank you Sir. No one told me these things but I’ve been following these advice for a year now.

Even though I've watched all YC videos I've made so many mistakes... I am rewatching all of them and understanding them better, thank you very much for the content, it is gold

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) - 00:00 - Intro 00:09 - How to Build an Minimum Viable Product (MVP)? 00:20 - Midwit Meme 00:54 - Launch Quickly and Iterate 01:50 - Pre-launch Startup Goals 02:52 - What's an MVP and Do Startups Need Them? 03:49 - Don't Worry About Losing People 04:26 - Founders Biggest Fear 04:53 - What Would Actually Happen? 05:39 - Fake Steve Jobs 07:17 - Examples - Software MVP 07:48 - First Version of Airbnb 08:36 - Twitch 09:15 - Stripe 10:36 - Solving Hair On Fire Problem 11:52 - Problem with Surveying Users 13:27 - You Don't Start With All Answers 14:00 - MVP is the Fastest Way to Start Learning 14:12 - Build an MVP Quickly 15:51 - Outro

MVP is a very confusing term. I think only in terms of designing experiments, running experiments, documenting learning and building a lot of prototypes. It is easier to throw away the prototypes. It is easy not to fall in love with prototypes. The purpose is to learn quickly and iterate to build a revised prototype. There are a lot of unknowns and it can be addressed by building prototypes. This also overcomes the need to be perfect. Just take the first stab and resolve as many problems as you can. Some of the examples given in this video have an offline component to it - like renting a room, dealing with banks. They built something to address those risks. Some products are pure 100% software products, in this case you need to know the big picture, be able to architect the right blueprint. Otherwise you will waste a lot of time because most of the things will be thrown away. You have to start over from scratch. Talking to customers requires you to apply a filter - you must have a technical vision. Otherwise you will end up with a me too product or something that is not cohesive. Coming up with a unique and differentiated product requires a high level view of what you are building. Fear can be overcome, if you focus on prototypes. Build fast advice is a bit misleading. It takes time to first have the right mental model of the technical side of the product. You have to build the right thing, otherwise it is going to be like Twitch streaming - some random person streaming some random stuff that nobody cares about.

This is probably the most important video to watch at this point in time for any founder out there either currently building or thinking of building a product

This is the Best advice for all first time founders. Awesome, Michael! Building an MVP quickly is an essential step in the product development process as it allows you to test your assumptions and validate your idea with minimal investment, helping you to save time and money in the long run.

Videos like this is the reason I can't go to school. Concise and useful.

Oh man, you completely changed my mind. last two months I have been working on my project and thinking about how to make it perfect and input enough information into the service. Without stumbling upon your video, I might have spent another two months heading in the wrong direction before launching. Now I'm thinking differently as you suggested and planning to share my MVP with my potential customers. Hope I can learn new things from here. Thanks for your contribution to my dream project. love man........ ❤

This one video has helped me out more than anything. I keep coming back to this video every once in a while. Thank you Yc

My first video of a startup school and I'm amazed to see how excellent they are, as a software engineer working in mobile apps, I am moving more towards startup MVP development and perhaps becoming a founder myself one day. An important question is what should be the roadmap if you plan to work in MVP in 2023 when there is a lot of competition and people with fair advantages who can simply beat you in your own game

The thing to keep in mind here is that although the iPhone went through iterations, Steve and Apple put out a first version that surprised the world. The takeaway being that there's thought that goes into getting your first version out there much before you iterate, and that requires an opinion about what that product should be even before you get customer/market feedback

Well, when I was 21, I had an idea, but I didn't have any money to develop an MVP. So, I learned to code by myself and built an MVP. It took me 2 years to learn and build an MVP, but now this video shows me how we can build an MVP. I love this video

As a first time Entrepreneur and innovator I needed to hear this

Honestly I feel YC is giving us this because they wanna tell new founders this is how we prove our concept fast, get metrics and start taking action on our ideas. That way it’s more practical to go up to VCs such as YC to get investment as we have proof of concept. Super great valuable info 🔥🔥🔥

I think that all of the examples you gave have something in common. They were MVPs in a new tech space. I feel that customer expectations were lower because of this, and so an MVP was more lightweight. Whereas, today, I feel in many sectors the customers' expectation has been set really high, and so the MVPs in many areas of today have to be quite polished and not as 'minimum' as they used to be. Thoughts?

I feel that the 2014 Y combinator lectures have some of the best startup advice but please keep making these kind of videos that build up on those points.

This is such great advice! We applied to YC for this summer batch and are working on these exact steps while we await the decision 🤞🏽🙏🏽

One thing I've been wrestling with is really how to start building. I've been a developer for a long time and my first thought was using what seemed like the most effective technology. That way I can mitigate problems down the line like bugs or adding new features or supporting customers. But now I realise this is the wrong approach. Because really the biggest user of the product is going to be me - I'm the one who will always be in the weeds, in order to support the customers. That's why how to start building really should be a list of the things I need as product support - looking up user info, backing up data, having checks running to flag inconsistencies. I think this framing can profoundly change the way you approach building the product by building it for you and your team to best support clients

My favorite episode so far! Straightforward, no bs.

One of the thing that affected me was the lack of tech skills to build a functioning MVP, i had to spend 6 months learning the MEARN stack online, then i managed to create an MVP and gave it to the users to test it and gave me feedback...Just imagine,i started in march last year, then spend 3 months looking for someone to develop the product,and when i couldn't find anyone, i decided to learn how to code on my own, and then launched a simple MVP in February this year... n

Thank you Michael and YC for keep producing and delivering quality guidance to founders.

MICHAEL BACK WITH THE HEAT

This will work for niches with few competitors, like in the case of inventions, but when your idea is based on small details, MVP will just be ignored, Threads from Meta as an example which now losing their users, on the other side Nothing phone which comes up with a good prototype for the phone market. otherwise, focusing on the problem and what makes your product different from the other is very important, this is what actually makes your project worth spending time on it.

I had seen this advise 100 times, but never explained in such detail and in simple words and examples.

This video litteraly change my life

I'm sad that over a year passed between this being posted and me discovering it. This is SO GOOD ! Thank you

Needed this, I keep getting caught up on trying to create a solution to every problem instead of getting the product out. I’m a real estate agent building a platform for my clients that list with me. I have my actual clients test it out and they typically have no problem testing it out for me as I’m a real estate agent building out a platform myself. Gonna stick with getting the basic, foundation done and out and build on top of that.

I hear it again and again and again.... and every time it makes even more sense

This is such a great reminder to many founders. I personally know devs who spend tons of time trying to add fancy features which may not even be important to customers. Just get it out there. Question is how do you talk to customers before you get them to sign up.

Listen! We’re doing this now…like this. It’s a great way to get people invested in helping.

I cannot express in words how much I love this guy

This is really what the first startup owners wants to hear and should hear. Thanks very much for your open and clear brief.

tyvm Michael! your advices are pure gold. You pushed me to go live asap. I've just launched the app and I feel alive again :D I couldnt imagine the ways ppl break my app

Great video, thanks! One thing I can't agree is that you can't validate the idea before MVP. I really like approaches like prototyping or mock-ups, which (if well prepared) give you huge amount of information even before MVP, which reduces number of iterations of MVP and later stages

This is the best lecture I’ve ever listened to. thank you Michael!

Notes: - Seek first users, don't be afraid they'll leave if disappointed (They most probably won't be early adopters) - Don't be a fake Steve Jobs (Even if you have the resources) - Deploy fast, iterate fast - Examples: Airbnb (no fundamental functionalities), Twitch (Looked like an indi project), Stripe (Was almost manual to new users) - Try attaching your story -> "that's an MVP" - With your story you'll have an idea of solving a problem - Most cases you can't survey 100 users. "Your customers are experts in the problem but can't solve it by their own". - Even big companies built the minimum features their users could use. Most big features were discovered after the product was launched while talking to the users who have the problem. - "Building and launching an MVP is the fastest way of learning" - How to make it quickly: 1) Have a specific deadline 2) write down your technical specs 3) Cut that spect 4) Don't fall in love with your MVP, it will change anyways. "It's better to have a hundred users who love your product than a thousand who kind of like it" Thank you Michael, this was very inspiring!

This is most important step for aspiring founder to watch.I am former Student of YCombinator

Love the comment section because SAME! It's been 4 months and just now i'm going all the way with my crapy MVP using notion. Thank you!!!

Best advice to founders who are building their mvp

Follow-up question: what's the best way, in your opinion, to actually have the dialogue with customers? Assuming there's an MVP, how do I design the dialogue so that we have meaningful conversation with useful take-aways?

Thank you so much Michael. I so wish to meet you one day. You are a mentor to all of us.

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:33 Launch *Quickly, Iterate* 01:44 Learn *from Users* 03:20 Target *Early Adopters* 05:26 Address *Fear* 07:02 Avoid *Perfectionism* 08:26 Examples *of MVPs* 11:42 Solve *Desperate Problems* 12:23 MVP *over Surveys* 13:47 Start *with Learning* 15:50 Don't *Fall in Love* Made with HARPA AI

You really leave an impression of a guy who knows his stuff well. Thank you!

Very motivational video for a founder who has fears about starting their project. It was really helpful. Thank you!

am currently at a startup as and I now understand why our founder keeps rushing us to push products to customers even if they are not 100% perfect. Thanks

WOW THE HAIR ON FIRE ANALOGY JUST HIT ME! Cause the person has no option but to take that solution! If not iterate until we have the water to resolve the issue at hand!

Best communicator at YC! Thank you for all you do.

Love this video, Michael! I love how succinctly you taught his incredibly impactful lesson. I teach this topic and will be sharing this video with my students!

Needed this! Right on time

I spent a year building a product, and it isn't working as I expected right now I'm about to drop it down and I see this video. now I got a clear vision of that. thanks a lot ❤♥

I'm building a healthcare startup - so not perfectly aligned, but still helpful. Thanks for the sharing your knowledge.

This is one of the best videos I’ve seen on this subject in my life.

This video boosted my confidence in what I'm thinking about building. I was bogged down with all the features of my app and trying to figure out how I go about implementing them all.

this is good for first time founders, third time founders know good distrubtion + ok product> low distrubition + great product

Succinctly describes the life cycle of an MVP! Thank you!

I felt in love with my MVP so much that I abandoned it after putting a lot to make it near finished product. This video taught me the way to follow as against what majority do.

Thank you for the video - it gave a huge amount of comfort and reassurance.

This was very helpful for me, thank you Michael, I now have my next steps.

This video tells almost everything that someone needs to know before thinking about a startup idea. But there's just one problem that is not ideally how it works as of present day. Back in 2007 or 2010, customer had very limited options and different pain that needed to be solved. It was okay to quickly build an MVP and reach out to customer and the reiterate your product overtime. However as of 2023, no user has anytime or desire to sit and wait for your crappy product to rise when they could be using best alternate product available right onto their phones. The only way the customer will accept your crappy product is if you really solving a massive pain (like the fire on your head example) and it's especially difficult in online world to find such a massive pain when the market is oversaturated with millions of competitor that's just waiting to see what crappy product you're building and they gonna launch 10x times better than less than a week. Plus, let's not forget all the marketing and networking these startup companies had to get the early adopter. If you can get Obama as your user on your crappy Instagram app on the very first day of launch then it's sure to get more early adopter over time. In general, business world don't move as simple as it seems. You must be wildly in right time, place, people, product mix to succeed with a crappy product

I hope most first time founders get to watch this video before they start out on their entrepreneurship journey.

This video was so helpful! I’ve always wanted to make sure everything is in place before I start something ❤

Pure brilliance. Goldmine for me! Thanks a bunch YC and Michael. LY!

The Head-on-Fire analogy will probably stick with me for the rest of my life. Wow!

I love the hair on fire analogy.. I am very inexperienced in this space, but I would love to chip in something. "Sometimes, you should build for people who didn't know they needed the product " Your product might then wake up something in them or make them realize a subtle inconvenience they've always had, and seeing your product eliminate that would then be a win for both of you.. IMO

This was excellent, thank you Michael. As an experienced founder who's neither the Jedi nor the idiot, I needed to hear this. Vivek

Thank's, now I'll build and MVP that will become into a $1B startup in a year.

Hey YC, can you make a video on customer channels for early founders ? It's hard to get to talk to someone outside your inner circle unless you've significant achievement

Profound life advice, too. This really hit home for me with my product and was very timely

I'd love a video like this focused on hardware.

I want you to hug Michael 🤗. Thanks for this great video

Great video. 20+ years experience in IT industry finally learned that I can use…

Thank you...I DON'T know how to thank...but please thank you and keep uploading these...

Great video! Thank you! I do have 1 question though. The two companies you share your personal experience about (Twitch and Stripe) were both founded in a time when this was more or less the state of the internet: simple and quite messy to be honest. Nowadays, BECAUSE many online businesses have had years to iterate, don't you think the average customer's expectations have also changed? How does that affect the MVP concept nowadays?

Michael Siebel: How would you characterize the "hair on fire" problem in the context of entertainment? Specifically for instance justin tv / twitch. Are we talking about people who are so bored or have such a strong need for human connection / live interaction over video that they would watch a person asleep / do something pretty boring? I can understand perfectly well what an MVP means for a customer with a problem. But entertainment seems like something a bit different and I haven't yet come across a YC video that explains it. Maybe I missed something.

The "brick / hair on fire" analogy is just fantastic

Iphone was probably the greatest first iteration product ever and it took two years to develop. This "launch crappy MVP fast" works well for free internet service industry where your potential customer doesn't have any risk of trying out a new product. Or if the start up have a first mover advantage where the customer don't have any option and it is take it or leave it situation. Most of the successful "crappy MVPs" had first mover advantage.

This is brilliant its changed my mindset and understood the reality thank you verry mutch 🥰

BEST ADVICE VIDEO FOR DEVELOPERS/TECH STARTUPS I HAVE SEEN ! ❤

I had fallen in love with my MVP before and transition became almost impossible. I felt too comfortable to embrace change when it came up.

Wish i heard this video before working for 18 month on my MVP :D, but i learnt a lot by doing that anyway

Great instructive video Michael. Thank you sir.

I’m about a year into my MVP. About 6 months to go before launch. I’ll take all of this to heart though. I’ll launch sooner than when I’m finished I suppose. The basics are there.

Thanks, Michael, MVP and TTM are keys concepts to being successful on this space

As a successful software founder, this is exactly how it worked for me.

IF a customer were able to properly define the problems they are encountering and were able to figure out a way to circumvent or alleviate the problems they are probably not looking to you for a solution. Most people know what they need to produce, not exactly how. As you stated until something is there, you don't know if it will work, it may work perfectly YET reveal other previously unknown weaknesses. I built an inventory and sales SQL database for my company in the early 2000's. No one offered or was able to deliver what we specifically needed re: finished roll tracing for a paper company from multiple initial lots and multiple intial paper producers. - until deploying it and seeing what inventory, receiving, shipping, sales, production and our customers thought and what worked etc it was all THEORETICAL, however within a few months we had a system we used for 10-12 years until selling the company.

Your last Statement is exactly what our CEO Aakrit tells us - "Build a thing that 100 people love than 1000 people like", awesome thing.

Advice and insights every first-time founder should consider. thank you 😊

Great advice! As I reflect on my life, the same principle should apply to my thesis, first job and first coding project. To date, I still want to perfect my work but always receive real-world feedback too late.

This video has saved me years.

This video just saved me a lot of money! Thank you🙏🏾✨️

Thanks so much for this video. Now I'm going to launch my own product without wasting any time 🎉😊

This lecture is just jaw-dropping!

Thank you for emphasizing the importance of limiting the functions of the software with which we launch MVP! Here are some key functions to consider when building a MVP: - core functionality - user registration/authentication - search and navigation - notifications - feedback collection - performance optimization - error handling and reporting - security measures - scalability and future growth