May be I don’t understand the Lean-startup lingo, but to me a MVP has always been about finding the cheapest, safest way to validate your product hypothesis. Sometimes you might need to build a miniature version of your product or service to test your hypothesis and obtain validated learning. But it is not always necessary or even desirable to build something.

Let’s zoom out for a minute. Let’s say you have an idea or a vision for a product or a service. You devise a series of possible strategies you could use to fulfill your vision. However it is important to acknowledge that each of your strategy is based on a list of hypothesis, which needs to be validated using a series of cheap, safe-fail experiments (via MVPs) to obtain validated learning. Then based on real data, we pivot or persist the direction of the vision. Either ways, you need to constantly keep running a series of experiments with real fast feedback cycles to calibrate/validate your progress/direction.

MVP is a safe-fail experiment. The best MVPs are those which give you maximum validated learning for minimum investment (time, effort & opportunity cost.)

For example:

• NeedFeed used a GreaseMonkey script to quickly validate their hypothesis about their social purchasing app on Facebook – http://vimeo.com/24749599
• At EdventureLabs we used presentations to create quick videos to test different learning techniques and their retention power with kids.
• Or we used dummy meters to validate the business model of an energy company, which wanted to build energy saving products for rural India. We visited a few farmers and small factories, explained how the device (dummy meter) would save them 50% on electricity bill each month. We quickly discovered that our business model was flawed and surprisingly we co-created a better model. Also through this process we learned about certain key concerns these folks had which required a very different conceptualization of the product.

Your ability to quickly (almost on the fly) tweak a little parameters and quickly test a corollary hypothesis is another very important characteristic of an MVP.  This is extremely important because when you go out there in the field to run your experiment, in the moment, you might find new data or ideas which might need to be validated to solidify your validated learning. If you have to make code changes and deploy stuff, it might not be easy for you to test new hypothesis, right then and there. Which is very important IMHO.

Next time you think of a MVP, think about a cheap, safe-fail experiment you can run to validate your hypothesis.

Note: Its important to distinguish MVP from Features Stubs. Feature stubs are also a quick way to validate your hypothesis, however they are mostly applicable once you have a product and want to validate how useful certain feature might be.

For example: Recently, I wanted to test if liking a comment on the Agile India Submission system is a feature people would find useful.

I added a like button which would simply show an alert message saying “Coming Soon..”. Using Google Analytics, I was able to measure that out of 36,000 impressions, only 6 people clicked on the Like button. A cheap way to validate my hypothesis. But this does not affect my product strategy and hence its different from MVP.

If you are a fresher (just graduated) looking to begin your Software profession or if you are already working as a Software Professional, looking for a change. The top question on your mind might be:

What Company should I join? Which company will be good for my career? And what role should I pick from a long-term perspective?

I get quite a few of these requests from people looking for help to decide/pick a company. They believe, I can advice them on this hard problem. Let me tell you up-front, there is no ready-made solution. A lot depends on your background/context and your aspirations.

The company you pick plays an important role, but I think your attitude, your passion, your aspirations play a much bigger role. 

For ex: If you come from a financially weak background, your family depends on your monthly income, you don’t really have the time to experiment or take chances and in the long-run you would be happy working at a good position in a large, stable company, then you have many options in India. You can pick any large product or service company and you would do just fine.

However, if you come from a financially strong background, your family is happy to give you some slack to figure out what you want to do, you are the person who has big aspirations, you might want to build your own product company (because most suck!) then working for a large product/service company will destroy your soul. Unfortunately, there are not many options for you in India. The options are growing, but its like finding needles in a haystack.

Here are few things you might want to keep in mind:

• Does this company have a real vision. A vision worth fulfilling?
• Will you be working closing with the founder/s of the company, who have this real vision that stikes a chord with you? (If you don’t get a high listening/thinking about the vision, find another company. Don’t waste your precious time. Life is too short for non-sense.)
• What does the company value? And more importantly, do they walk-the-talk or is it just lip-service? And do these company values suit your personality? Is it aligned with your believes?
• Is this is a small company of extremely talented (read as capable) & passionate people?
• Does this company have the potential?
• Is the company flexible and open? (I know some companies, who have their employee policies on their website.)
• Do they care about their employees? Are they open to letting you try out different things before you’ve to decide which career path you want to choose for now?
• Does the company have a very strict hiring process? Generally this ensures your co-workers will be at least as smart (if not more) than you. Ideally I like to be the worst band-member of the band. This way, I’m constantly challenged and I keep learning.
• Will this company push you outside your comfort zone and let you grow?
• What is the work-culture of the company? (You want a creative design-studio kind of an environment, not a factory setup.)
• Will you be collaborating and interacting (read as learning) with different teams. You don’t want to be pigeon-hole into a spot (role) and restricted to that specific task.

Don’t shy away from slogging. (Of course you need to see if its worth slogging and its done for valid reasons.) I meet many people with 10 years of experience, but they have 1 year repeated 10 times. Don’t make that mistake.

Finally the litmus test is:

Does this company excite you enough, that you would be willing to work for free?

If this makes sense, then the next step is to find more information about the company so you can answer these questions. Read my next blog: How to Seek more information about a Company?