Raff Paquin's presentation during Founder Institute session on MVP. Montreal 2015

1. How to build your
Minimum Viable Product
Presented by @raffpaquin

2. Objectives of the afternoon:
• What problem are we solving with the MVP?
• What feature should be included or not in the MVP?
• How/What to measure in the MVP and why?
• How to transform ideas into a prototype?
• How to transform a prototype into actionable insights?
• How to monetize those actionable insights?

3. What is my background?
• My name is Raff Paquin.
• I’m part of the founding team @ Frank & Oak
• Former Head of Technology
• Now partner at Interaction Ventures and I’m helping businesses to scale
• Feel free to contact me! me@raff.ca

4. What is your background?
• Who is a student?
• Who is an entrepreneur full time?
• Who is thinking about launching a startup?
• Who is from Montreal?
• Who is active on Twitter?

5. @raffpaquin
#Montreal #tech #Startup

6. @SergiusEscobar
#Montreal #tech #Startup

7. @founding
#Montreal #tech #Startup

8. Customer Validation & Development with Beth Thouin.
What did you learn last week?

9. Customer Validation & Development with Beth Thouin.
What did you learn last week?
Listen. Test hypotheses. Seek for proof.

10. The market is validated. Now what?
Startups are machine to learn.
You should always be looking for
learning opportunities.
Continue to validate.
We need to start testing our
hypotheses in the ‘real world’.
But that is complexe, no?
Start to build.
&

11. Starting to build. Two approaches:
Maximise change of success Release early, release often
Build a great product
Build all the features we need
Beautiful, easy to use
Scalable and safe
Sell the vision to early adopters
Release something early
Missing features
Don’t invest too much in UI/UX

12. Startups need to learn. All the time.
Maximise change of success Release early, release often
Build a great product
Build all the features we need
Beautiful, easy to use
Scalable and safe
Sell the vision to early adopters
Release something early
Missing features
Don’t invest too much in UI/UX

13. Release early, release often.
Why do you think it’s better to
release early and often?

14. Release early, release often.
What are the minimum features needed
to test an idea like Zappos?

15. Release early, release often.
What are the minimum features needed
to test an idea like Zappos?
Amazon bought Zappos for 1.2B$

16. Release early, release often.
How often do you think businesses like
Frank & Oak release new versions of
their website?

17. Wikipedia time!
The Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
is a key lean startup concept popularized by Eric Ries.
The basic idea is to maximize validated learning
for the least amount of effort.
After all, why waste effort building out a product
without first testing if it's worth it.

18. Wikipedia time!
The Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
is a key lean startup concept popularized by Eric Ries.
The basic idea is to maximize validated learning
for the least amount of effort.
After all, why waste effort building out a product
without first testing if it's worth it.
You need to
read this book.

19. Wikipedia time!
The Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
is a key lean startup concept popularized by Eric Ries.
The basic idea is to maximize validated learning
for the least amount of effort.
After all, why waste effort building out a product
without first testing if it's worth it.
You should also
follow this guy
online.

20. Wikipedia time!
The Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
is a key lean startup concept popularized by Eric Ries.
The basic idea is to maximize validated learning
for the least amount of effort.
After all, why waste effort building out a product
without first testing if it's worth it.
Remember:
Startups are
machine to learn.

21. Wikipedia time!
The Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
is a key lean startup concept popularized by Eric Ries.
The basic idea is to maximize validated learning
for the least amount of effort.
After all, why waste effort building out a product
without first testing if it's worth it.
Are-we lazy?! No!
We want to lower
the risk, minimise the
money needed and
optimize our time.

22. Wikipedia time!
The Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
is a key lean startup concept popularized by Eric Ries.
The basic idea is to maximize validated learning
for the least amount of effort.
After all, why waste effort building out a product
without first testing if it's worth it.
… and time,
money and
energy.

23. Wikipedia time!
The Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
is a key lean startup concept popularized by Eric Ries.
The basic idea is to maximize validated learning
for the least amount of effort.
After all, why waste effort building out a product
without first testing if it's worth it.
Remember Beth’s
presentation. Always
validate.

24. Build the product! Test the idea!
A B
What is the main objective of the MVP?
or

25. What is the goal of the MVP?
Build the product! Test the idea!
A B

26. The MVP is a process to
continuously test ideas
and built the product,
at the same time.

27. The process:

28. Let’s take a 10 minutes break!
Pause

29. The process:

30. Test hypotheses (ideas) by building a prototype (code)
Step 1 - Build
Prototype
Hypotheses
Build
1
What kind of idea do we want to test?
What king of prototype should we build?
What technology should we use to build code? PHP? Node.js?
Where can I find a technical co-founder (CTO)?
What if my product is not perfect, does customer will trust my brand?
Tools:
• Google Form http://www.google.ca/forms/about/
• Mailchimp http://mailchimp.com/
• sumo.me http://sumome.com/
• IFTTT https://ifttt.com/
• Zappier https://zapier.com/
• Shopify https://www.shopify.ca/
• LaunchRock http://launchrock.co/

31. Expose your prototype (code) to customers and track behaviours (data)
Step 2 - Measure
Behaviours
Prototype
Measure
2
What should we track?
How to setup tracking?
How often should we look at data?
How we know we have enough data to take a decision?
What to do if data make no sense?
How to bring traffic to the MVP?
Tools:
• Google Analytics http://www.google.ca/analytics/
• Optimizely https://www.optimizely.com/
• Gecko Board https://www.geckoboard.com/
• Mixpanel ($) http://www.mixpanel.com/
• KissMetrics ($) https://www.kissmetrics.com/
• RJMetrics ($$$) https://rjmetrics.com/
• Looker ($$$) http://www.looker.com/

32. Transform behaviours (data) into new hypotheses (ideas)
Step 3 - Learn
New hypotheses
Behaviours
Learn
3
How to track knowledge?
How to write and share knowledge with the rest of the team?
How to prepare the next iteration?
How to develop the roadmap and prioritize the next features?
Should you raise money to build the next iteration?
Tools:
• Google Sheets http://www.google.ca/sheets/about/
• Asana http://asana.com
• Balsamic Mockups http://balsamiq.com/products/mockups/
• Phone
• Email

33. What is the value of this process?

34. What is the value of this process?
We create validated ideas that increase the value of the startup
(a product that customer wants) while lowering the risk.

35. When should we stop this process?

36. When should we stop this process?
NEVER!

37. Wait! So you are telling me that business
like Frank & Oak are still doing it?

38. Wait! So you are telling me that business
like Frank & Oak are still doing it?
Yes they are!

39. Oh wow. So, businesses like Google
are also doing it?

40. Oh wow. So, businesses like Google
are also doing it?
Oh yes they are!

41. Questions.

42. @raffpaquin
Thank you.