Your minimum viable product (MVP) should focus on functionality over design. Here, the goal is to prove the hypothesis that the product can fix the market frictions. Unless that validation has been done, do not waste resources on secondary features…. And do not mindlessly burn cash on advertising until you can attain a product-market fit.
Never try to scale a business until you can retain customers. That customer retention is a validation of your business hypothesis via product-market fit.
A growth playbook which begins when a company cannot retain customers wastes resources. You are likely going to onboard customers, but the day that marketing or promotion blitz stops, the customers will move. Build. Pursue product-market fit. Then Scale.
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Comment 1: Thanks, Prof, for sharing your insights on MVPs and customer retention. I completely agree that functionality should be the priority when building an MVP. It’s crucial to validate the hypothesis and attain product-market fit before investing in secondary features and advertising.
Furthermore, your point about customer retention being a validation of the business hypothesis is spot on. As you mentioned, it’s not wise to focus solely on onboarding customers without ensuring they will stick around in the long run. Pursuing product-market fit first and then scaling is a more efficient and sustainable approach.
Thank you for sharing your valuable insights, as always.
Comment 2: When Sir Francis Bacon published in his work, Meditationes Sacrae (1597), the saying: “knowledge itself is power”, he was partly right, holistically knowledge itself is not just power but the wisdom to channel potential/acquired power to the right direction at the right time for optimal result/performance.
The above infor is worth millions of dollars to any startup, many has fallen victim of this, unfortunately they where not armed with such classical yet simple knowledge and that have cost them their existence sadly.
Thank you Prof. Ndubuisi Ekekwe. You made my day with this timely advice.
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