Start-ups and product reboots are all thinking the same thing - how quickly can we get to market? The app market is break-kneck, and being first-to-market, or soon-to-market can be important, but, not at the expense of quality. In this talk we'll explore the motivations for being first, and argue the values of being "better" From experience, we'll focus on how to convince clients and stakeholders to buy-in to quality over "fast" - as a philosophy, as a differentiator, and as a process to making it happen. Anyone can make an app - just look at any of the app stores, but only the ones that focus on the customer, on quality, and on the entire experience as a whole will succeed. This talk will give you a roadmap to create better products, get and keep clients on-board with your direction, and deliver outstanding products to the market.

1. MVP:
Minimum Viable Product vs.
Maximum Value Product.
Adam R.T. Smith, CEO / Director of Experience Design
Liquid Reality

2. Adam R.T. Smith
C.E.O. / Director of Experience Design
@liquidreality

3. state of mobile today

4. "The global apps business is expected to make $25 billion in
revenue this year, up 62% from a year ago, according to
Gartner. To put that in perspective, movie theaters sold less than
half that dollar amount at the box office in 2012." - WSJ: Business of Apps /
Gartner Research
crazy money

5. phenomenal growth
iOS App StoreiOS App Store Google PlayGoogle Play
Downloads 50 Billion + 48 Billion +
Total Apps 850,000 + 800,000 +

6. seems like we’re doing great,
right?

7. that’s misleading...

8. • Too many apps with poor quality, flawed UX, thoughtless
design
• Another photo app, another social app, another game
• Me-too’s, also-ran’s, and flat out imitators are crowding
the market
• And users are noticing...

10. "Canalys estimates that just 25 developers accounted for 50% of
app revenue in the US in these stores [Apple App Store & Google
Play] during the first 20 days of November 2012. Between them,
they made $60 million from paid-for downloads and in-app
purchases over this period." - Canalys, December 2012

11. most apps fail...

12. most apps suck.

13. minimum viable product

14. • in 2009, Eric Ries coines the term
“Minimum Viable Product”
• based on the unconventional
process used to build IMVU
• developed the methodology after
a couple his previous startups
failed
• made a name for himself through
his book, speaking & helping
entrepreneurs

15. • MVP methodology asks us to reach out to the market
sooner than ever before
• private beta, a landing page, or an AdWords text ad
• tries to get actionable feedback from the market as soon
as possible, as cheaply as possible
• intended to validate a companies assumptions early &
often

16. traditional roadmap

17. mvp roadmap

18. • positioned as sitting in the middle of two opposing
extremes:

19. product development
extremes

20. where mvp fits

21. • unique in the way that it combines market testing right into
the earliest prototyping and validation stages
• intended to let the market tell you at each iteration, what
they like and don’t like, qualitatively and quantitatively
• via in-product analytics tools like Flurry, Google Analytics,
and Localytics
• solicited and unsolicited direct user feedback
MVP is:

22. • suggests you create something that can measure
interest in the problem you are trying to solve
• and the way in which you are attempting to solve it
• before you’ve solved it
• it’s a learning process, in theory, with the primary goal of
gathering as much data, metrics, and analysis possible to
figure out what works and what doesn’t

23. • note: purist view of MVP is not intended to cater to the
whims of your customers, but rather to run experiments
on them and derive your own conclusions

24. the experiment, or series of
experiments,
in a Build-Measure-Learn loop,
allows you to continually evolve
your product until it satisfactorily
solves your problem, or your idea
fails...

25. whichever comes first.

26. benefits touted for MVP include:
• the cost of user acquisition for traditional product
launches can be tremendously expensive, so adopting
MVP lowers the cost of failing with a product the market
doesn’t want
• benefit from testing with real, organic use cases. It’s out
there in the wild, used by real people in the real ways they
will use your product
• low-hanging fruit is identified and checked off early. Easy
pickings for quick fixes and obvious missteps

27. • brings clarity to your business goals: re-prioritize and re-
evaluate realistic milestones
• allows you to test your marketing initiatives: value
propositions, and messaging at very early stages, and
with each iteration.
• allows you to generate early revenue, because nothing
speaks louder than people giving you their hard earned
money.
• allows you to fail fast and often, and learn from your
failings.

28. not proven to provide any more
value than any other
methodology, and can in fact
cause more harm than good.

29. problems with MVP as a
methodology

30. • going to market too soon in order to validate your ideas
and solutions is lazy and disrespectful
• a way to avoid facing the hard problems head on, working
through them to uncover the right solution, and building a
great product for your future customers.

31. • do your homework
• really GET the problems your trying to solve
• really GET what your target audience wants and needs at
the deepest level
• are willing to put in the effort to really figure out what it is
that NEEDS to be solved
if you:

32. • you are far better equipped to solve those problems than
random users who click on smoke-tests or sign up for
private betas
then:

33. with a minimal product that is
incomplete, in flux, and doesn’t
yet stand up to users maturing
expectations, you’re asking them
to have a lot of unsupported faith
in your company and your
dedication to solving their
problems on their behalf

34. MVPs attract 3 types of users
• the people that want to hate you from the get go, no
matter who you are or what your product does
• the people that want to love you and will tell you how
much they appreciate where your products going, but,
won’t bother you with the negative feedback

35. MVPs attract 3 types of users
• in the middle, there’s those that genuinely care about the
problem you’re solving, your product and really want to
help you help them.
• this middle group is often the smallest, and their data is
obscured by the overly polarized data from the previous
groups

36. • actionable feedback doesn’t come from beta testers who
want to feel like they’re “in the loop”
• it comes from users who care about your product, who
believe in the solution you are offering, who see that
you’ve put in the time to build something that caters to
their needs
• valuable feedback is inseparable from genuine care for the
product
• making product decisions based on the input from users
that aren’t invested in the success of your product is
potentially dangerous.

37. • WANT your product
• DESIRE your product
• find it hard to imagine how they got by without it before it
existed
• can’t be done with a bare bones product cobbled
together to test your ideas
users, even testers, need to:

38. In mvp, the user experience is
often missing, downplayed, or
relegated to a “future
enhancement”

39. in creating something minimally
viable, something that doesn’t
feel whole, and openly testing it in
the market, you are establishing a
brand association with an
incomplete, unfinished and
unpolished product

40. in order to get people in sufficient
numbers to actually get valuable
feedback, you have to announce
that you’re working on something
so early in the process that it
alerts your competitors

41. • “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until
you show it to them.”- Steve Jobs
• “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would
have said faster horses.”- Henry Ford (although, it’s not proven he said this)
• “Some people use research like a drunkard uses a
lamppost: for support, not illumination.”- David Ogilvy
• “The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to
go beyond them into the impossible.”- Arthur C. Clark

42. worse still, is the misinterpretation
of MVP

43. minimum viable product vs. minimum viable
product

44. as a means to reduce time-to-
market
• many startups that look at MVP, see a fast, easy way to
validate their ideas as cheaply as possible.
• problem is, unless you find that your ideas fail REALLY
early on in the process, it is certainly not faster - it’s quite
the opposite.
• building in all this testing, analysis and learning into each
iteration can dramatically extend the development
process - if you are actually learning from your inputs.

45. as a means to reduce costs
• similarly, using the mvp methodology isn’t cheaper, again,
unless you fail early and abandon your idea.
• in the long run, if you’re doing it right, you still have to do all
the same work you always do to create a new product.
• including strategy, UX, design, and development.
• but with the additional and potentially exponential costs of
doing it in continuous iterative Build Measure Learn loops.

46. as a go-to-market strategy
• MVP is a validation and market testing strategy. It is not a
go-to-market strategy.
• in the long run, if you’re doing it right, you still have to do all
the same work you always do to create a new product.
• including strategy, UX, design, and development.
• but with the additional and potentially exponential costs of
doing it in continuous iterative Build Measure Learn loops.

47. intentional or not, MVP has
created an environment where
it's ok to fail

48. • “Failing sooner is cheaper”.
• “Failing on each iteration gives us insight to what users
don’t want”.
• “Sure we failed, but, we didn’t waste that much money”.
• “Failing on v1.0 can’t be our fault, we’ve been testing this
idea in the market since day one. They must have lied to
us”.
• moves accountability for success off of the company, the
startup, the team and onto the market itself.

49. methodology of excuses
• it wasn’t my idea.
• it wasn’t built very well.
• at least I knew when to call it a day.

50. The pressures on startups & the
pressures on new products are
significantly higher today than
even just one year ago

51. aim for awesome

52. maximum value product

53. why?

54. Because the iPhone
solved 3 critical
problems, and solved
those 3 problems
exceptionally well.

55. They chose to release the device
without the feature not because it
wasn’t important to the product,
they chose to omit the feature
because it wasn’t “just right”.

56. The iPhone delivered the
maximum value product possible
within the constraints Apple faced
by focussing only on what it could
do exceptionally well, and setting
aside that which it couldn't.

57. • A product is like an ecosystem. Every feature or function
you introduce, or remove, has a direct impact on every
other part of your product.
• Being able to cut something when it doesn’t stand up to
your quality standards is more difficult than cutting a
feature when you run out of time or budget.
• You are consciously removing something from your
product that you may have working in some fashion, but
is bringing the experience and quality of everything else
you have done down.

58. Cut it like cancer. You’re product
is only as good as its worst
interaction.

59. • Diving in deep, and digging until no more can be dug to
uncover those 3 or 4 fundamental problems that your
product needs to solve is fundamental to creating
maximum value products.
• Every product starts with an idea, but that idea is usually
amorphous, and leans more towards the solution end of
the spectrum.
• You have to really uncover what those problems that
generate the need for that solution are, and they are not
always obvious, or even logical.

60. How do you know when you’ve
discovered one those
fundamental problems?

61. • Once you have your fundamental problems, it is usually
quite clear which ones are your critical pillars.
• Those are the ones you focus on, those are the ones you
put your all into solving and solving completely.
critical pillars

62. Maximum Value is not about
creating value through building
more features

63. it’s about maximizing the value
within the features you do build.

64. Whereas minimum viable product
promotes doing only what is
necessary to be viable

65. maximum value product
promotes doing only that which
you can do exceptionally well.

66. MVPs compared
Minimum Viable ProductMinimum Viable Product Maximum Value ProductMaximum Value Product
places focus on validating the solutions to
your problems
places focus on validating the problems you
are trying to solve
tells you to use the market to solve your
problems
maximum tells you to solve your problems
FOR your market
aims to create an environment where you
can fail safely
aims to create an environment where you
can face the hard problems head on

67. MVPs compared
Minimum Viable ProductMinimum Viable Product Maximum Value ProductMaximum Value Product
is doing only what is necessary to be viable
is doing only that which you can make
awesome
often sidelines the small things, the niceties,
the polish
specifically focusses on the small things, the
niceties, the details the polish

68. Maximum Value Product is
• about spending the time and effort upfront to distill the
problems you are hoping to solve down to their most
fundamental cores. Then solving those, and nothing more.
• about respecting your customers by putting in the time,
putting in the effort, and facing the hard problems head on
before you ask for their time or money.
• about having the passion, the love, the willingness to sacrifice,
and the faith in yourself and your team to persevere in the
face of what seems impossible.

69. Maximum Value Product is
• about finding the right product gestalt, it’s soul, and never
wavering.
• about knowing which solutions you can execute
phenomenally, and focussing your efforts on those.
• about knowing what you can’t execute phenomenally.
And being willing to hold back anything that isn’t. Including
your entire product if need be.

70. Maximum Value Product is
• about sweating the small stuff. Obsessively.
• about believing that quality trumps features in the long
run.
• about Not using your customers as lab rats.

71. Because you sweat the small
stuff.
And when you do something,
you do it right.

72. You need to be obsessively
concerned about the small things,
the in-betweens, the transient
states - these are the areas
where greatness hides.

73. • when it all comes down to it, it’s all about the details, the
niceties, the design, the user experience, the
optimizations, the performance.
• these are the things that create desirability, these are the
things that create loyalty, these are the things that tell
your customer you respect them.
• these are also the things that are generally the first to get
sidelined in an MVP, because they are intangible, hard to
quantify, and even harder to measure.

74. doing anything exceptionally well
is hard. and doing it exceptionally
well takes time, dedication, love,
passion and a touch of insanity

75. working towards maximum value

76. • Slow down. People want to start working too soon.
Figure out what core problems you’re really solving first.
• Focus on your problem, not your solution.
• Set your bar high and early. Always be working towards
awesome, even if you don’t get there, you’ll be better off
than if you’re focussed on the minimal.
• Face the hard problems head on. Attack them. Dissect
them. Get everyone talking about them.

77. • break down the walls created by roles & disciplines and
just be smart people trying to solve the same problem
together
• involve all key team members as early as possible and
continuously, especially when uncovering the problems
you are trying to solve, and the ways you intend to solve
them

78. • Embrace your constraints (time / money / resources) to
determine what problems you can solve in a complete
and awesome way.
• You don't have to solve every problem, but you do have
to solve every problem in the most amazing and holistic
way you can.
• If you can't do something awesome, don't do it at all.

79. • Critical Pillars
critical pillars

80. • Staged Roadmap
staged roadmap