- Eric and Michael answer questions about MVPs in a live video session
- They discuss the importance of a clear one-liner for startup descriptions
- They advise that a scrappy MVP can still be successful, especially if it solves a unique problem
- They suggest layering an MVP onto existing products in the same space
- They discuss the challenges of building a platform for property managers and the need for industry knowledge
- They advise immersing oneself in the industry to gain insights and prioritize features based on pain points
- They discuss the importance of creating replay value and targeting a smaller community for user-generated content platforms.

- The speaker discusses the importance of priming a network for people to share their accomplishments by scraping existing platforms like Twitter or Crunchbase.
- They advise founders of products with long launch times to start with smaller versions of their vision using off-the-shelf technology.
- The speaker suggests that building a minimum viable product (MVP) can validate the demand for the product and demonstrate the founders' capabilities.
- They give examples of companies that started with simpler versions of their products before progressing to their long-term goals.
- In terms of generating sales before launch, the speaker recommends getting letters of intent or agreements to pilot, and suggests starting with a service before having the actual product.
- The speaker also advises founders to study failed startups in their industry and understand the reasons for their failure.
- They caution about the price sensitivity of the target market and the importance of offering a cost-effective solution.
- Regarding legal liability, the speaker advises being cautious when dealing with expensive items and trusting one's gut instincts.
- The summary ends with a mention of a home wellness service and products marketplace called Binistop, but no further information is provided.

- The speaker advises charging for a home wellness service from the beginning, especially if there are real costs involved.
- They suggest charging more than existing solutions to validate if people truly want the service.
- For launching an MVP, the speaker recommends starting with what the founder already does and finding the smallest thing that has a big impact.
- After launching an MVP, the speaker suggests being skeptical and asking if the product provides value to users. If not, find a group of people who are in pain and willing to use a bad product to solve their problem.
- The speaker also mentions turning off the product or simulating an outage to see who complains as a test of whether people benefit from the product.
- The question of whether to continue working on a business without product-market fit or start again is difficult to answer. The speaker suggests time-bounding the effort and trying everything possible for at least six months.

- The speaker suggests giving a startup at least 6 months to try and make it work before considering pivoting.
- During this time, strategies such as putting all ideas on a whiteboard and focusing on the top one for a week can be effective.
- It is important to be intellectually honest about the effort put into the startup and not trick oneself into thinking all ideas have been tried.
- Feedback from users can be captured and measured through personal calls, office visits, dinners, and creating WhatsApp groups.
- Doing things that don't scale, like personally talking to users, can provide valuable insights in the early stages.
- When pitching a startup, it is recommended to start with what is being worked on currently, followed by traction, business model, and then the vision.
- Sharing metrics associated with the current work can help demonstrate legitimacy to investors.
- White label services can be used to test demand, but simpler alternatives like Google Sheets can also be effective.

- The video discusses various topics related to starting and growing a software company.
- It emphasizes the importance of testing demand and building your own software if you want to scale and raise money.
- It mentions Fleetco.in, a business assistant for transport and logistics companies in India, and highlights the need for understanding the market.
- The video advises on pricing strategies, suggesting overpricing to ensure value delivery and targeting customers with significant pain points.
- It addresses the dilemma of focusing on building new features or implementing revenue sources for an e-learning platform, suggesting it depends on the startup's goals and vision.
- The importance of open communication and conflict resolution among co-founders is emphasized, along with the idea of time-bounding experiments to resolve differences in company direction.
- The video advises honesty and clear communication when approaching B2B customers for beta testing.
- It clarifies the misconception about Uber's initial incentives and highlights the importance of solving a specific pain point in the beginning.
- The question of whether to patent a technology service before releasing an MVP is discussed, with the speaker suggesting they have limited experience in IP but emphasizing the importance of understanding the startup's specific circumstances.

- Patents are not necessarily critical for startups, as the focus should be on finding something people want and selling it to them.
- Many founders think they need to patent their ideas before launching, but patents are often for future problems that may arise after hitting product market fit.
- Startups should focus on solving the problems they currently have, such as gaining users, developing a product, and generating revenue.
- Dependence on platforms like YouTube can be risky, as these platforms may block or exploit businesses that rely on them.
- If dependence on a platform is long-term, it may be wise to consider building a lifestyle business or finding alternative revenue streams.
- Building a product that becomes mainstream quickly and garners a strong user base may provide some protection against platform shutdowns, but it is difficult to achieve.

- Eric and Michael discuss the importance of a clear one-liner for startup descriptions
- They advise that a scrappy MVP can still be successful, especially if it solves a unique problem
- They suggest layering an MVP onto existing products in the same space
- They discuss the challenges of building a platform for property managers and the need for industry knowledge
- They advise immersing oneself in the industry to gain insights and prioritize features based on pain points
- They discuss the importance of creating replay value and targeting a smaller community for user-generated content platforms
- The speaker discusses the importance of priming a network for people to share their accomplishments
- They advise founders of products with long launch times to start with smaller versions of their vision using off-the-shelf technology
- The speaker suggests that building an MVP can validate the demand for the product and demonstrate the founders' capabilities
- They give examples of companies that started with simpler versions of their products before progressing to their long-term goals
- The speaker recommends getting letters of intent or agreements to pilot for generating sales before launch
- The speaker advises founders to study failed startups in their industry and understand the reasons for their failure
- They caution about the price sensitivity of the target market and the importance of offering a cost-effective solution
- Regarding legal liability, the speaker advises being cautious when dealing with expensive items and trusting one's gut instincts
- The summary ends with a mention of a home wellness service and products marketplace called Binistop
- The speaker advises charging for a home wellness service from the beginning, especially if there are real costs involved
- They suggest charging more than existing solutions to validate if people truly want the service
- For launching an MVP, the speaker recommends starting with what the founder already does and finding the smallest thing that has a big impact
- After launching an MVP, the speaker suggests being skeptical and asking if the product provides value to users
- The speaker also mentions turning off the product or simulating an outage to see who complains as a test of whether people benefit from the product
- The question of whether to continue working on a business without product-market fit or start again is difficult to answer
- The speaker suggests time-bounding the effort and trying everything possible for at least six months
- The speaker suggests giving a startup at least 6 months to try and make it work before considering pivoting
- During this time, strategies such as putting all ideas on a whiteboard and focusing on the top one for a week can be effective
- It is important to be intellectually honest about the effort put into the startup and not trick oneself into thinking all ideas have been tried
- Feedback from users can be captured and measured through personal calls, office visits, dinners, and creating WhatsApp groups
- Doing things that don't scale, like personally talking to users, can provide valuable insights in the early stages
- When pitching a startup, it is recommended to start with what is being worked on currently, followed by traction, business model, and then the vision
- Sharing metrics associated with the current work can help demonstrate legitimacy to investors
- White label services can be used to test demand, but simpler alternatives like Google Sheets can also be effective
- The video discusses various topics related to starting and growing a software company
- It emphasizes the importance of testing demand and building your own software if you want to scale and raise money
- It mentions Fleetco.in, a business assistant for transport and logistics companies in India, and highlights the need for understanding the market
- The video advises on pricing strategies, suggesting overpricing to ensure value delivery and targeting customers with significant pain points
- It addresses the dilemma of focusing on building new features or implementing revenue sources for an e-learning platform
- The importance of open communication and conflict resolution among co-founders is emphasized
- The video advises honesty and clear communication when approaching B2B customers for beta testing
- It clarifies the misconception about Uber's initial incentives and highlights the importance of solving a specific pain point in the beginning
- The question of whether to patent a technology service before releasing an MVP is discussed
- Patents are not necessarily critical for startups, as the focus should be on finding something people want and selling it to them
- Startups should focus on solving the problems they currently have, such as gaining users, developing a product, and generating revenue
- Dependence on platforms like YouTube can be risky, as these platforms may block or exploit businesses that rely on them
- If dependence on a platform is long-term, it may be wise to consider building a lifestyle business or finding alternative revenue streams
- Building a product that becomes mainstream quickly and garners a strong user base may provide some protection against platform shutdowns, but it is difficult to achieve.

Questions from SUS 2020 answered live by Michael & Eric (https://www.startupschool.org/posts/31216)

I'm the course facilitator at Startup School.

I'm a partner at Y Combinator and helper.

Yeah, our volunteer today to help answer your questions.

We've got a bunch of questions that people asked about MVPs on the forum.

We're planning to spend a couple of minutes just answering each 1 and really trying to dive in and give some advice tailored specifically to the startup.

Zephrys is an analytics platform for competitive gamers that provides users with game-specific tools and data to help analyze, track, and improve their performance.

It's not the sexiest one-liner in the world, but it definitely accomplished the goal of me having a good picture of what it does.

Yeah, like I'm nodding my head and I understand where this is going.

Consumers expect more than a scrappy MVP if there are existing products in the space.

Do you have advice for MVPs entering the space with the existing developed competitors?

So I thought that was the funny bit because I felt like the first sentence in that should have been the paragraph.

Do consumers expect more than a scrappy MVP if there are other existing products?

That's the question, and the answer is hopefully no, because as a startup, your ability to build more than a scrappy MVP is very challenging.

I would say that if I go back to the Justin TV days, like if you can find a small population of people that have enough of a problem that the other folks aren't solving, that they're willing to use something that's pretty bad, that's a very good sign.

If the only way you can find any group of users, even 10, even 100, who love you, is if they have a very polished product, that's not a good sign.

That's actually a good sign that the other folks are doing a really good job.

1 of the hacks that I like to use at this stage is to actually layer the MVP onto the existing product.

So, for example, If there's already some software that your users, not your users, like the people in the community are already using to track their competitive StarCraft 2 analysis, what you could consider doing is actually like building, say, like a Chrome extension that sits on top of the other products and just overlays the extra data.

Because you're really like, the goal of any good MVP is to test your hypothesis.

Is what you're making important enough for people to care about?

Will they actually care that you're building it?

And so you wanna do that with the least amount of effort.

And if there's already existing good products, it's possible that you may find the users of those products pretty easily.

And you can build that little bit that's special to you.

We automate billing, customer care and maintenance for property managers Okay

The only thing that's confusing to me is that I thought that property managers do billing, customer care, and maintenance.

Yeah, or is it like the billing of property managers?

So maybe a bit of clarification, like maybe a bit like, I would probably just start off by, we make software for property managers.

We help them automate billing, customer care, and maintenance of their properties.

If it's a tool that property managers are using to be more efficient, then that should be more clear in the upfront.

And maybe even speaking to how much more efficient.

Does that mean a typical property manager can go from managing 1 property to 5, or from 5 to 15?

Yeah, like what's the value prop that you're offering to them?

I mean, like, I can't visualize the pain.

We are currently starting with a few clients and are basically tailoring our service to them.

How do we avoid the trap of making our service too specific and how do we balance between the requirements of a few clients with the need to build a platform that is more universal?

So I kind of think that like when I see a startup like this I really have this basic question which is are you going into this space with knowledge of the space?

Like were you a previous property manager?

If so, you should have a lot of insights on the types of problems that are general That can be applied across the industry And so you should have a lot of insights on what your initial product should be.

Step B, if you're coming into this with little personal experience, you think there's an opportunity here, but you kind of don't know what it is, I don't know any.

And I don't know a clever way of avoiding it.

Just learning the business means you're going to be building a lot of features that probably are not generally applicable, and that's the cost of learning about this business.

So in my mind, if you already know about the business, Use your gut.

If someone asks you to build something that your experience tells you is not general, great.

If not, consider the first 5 customers as you just getting an education on the industry, and it might be a very expensive 1.

For the case of someone who's coming into the industry that they're not already a participant of, some of the best founders that I've seen, they just immerse themselves in it.

Like for example, they may actually become a property manager.

Like they may volunteer or they just like go and say, I'm gonna help you run your business for like a week or 2.

Yeah, even if, I mean, if you are a property manager yourself, you don't necessarily have to do that, because hopefully that's why you're starting this company.

That seems like an even better offer than giving them software.

It'd be like, hey, I'll just do some of your work for you so I can learn.

1 of the things that I learned from kind of like to this question of how do you prioritize features, I always try to, as I'm doing user interviews or talking to initial users, I really try to find pain points that people are already trying to solve.

So for example, if you're talking to property managers and they're totally comfortable doing all the books by themselves, they just have their weekly hour that they spend doing all this.

That might not actually be the right place to start with.

Maybe you could start with, are they actively experimenting and trying other tools?

Those are usually the problems that I like to start with, because the person's already trying to find a solution, so they're primed when you come to talk to them to be excited and to try it, versus you having to pitch them hard and changing their entire business workflow or whatever.

Yeah, I think we see the opposite a lot, where somebody says, if something's being undone on paper, there is a business in putting it into the computer.

And by nature of the fact that it's being done on paper, you could build a billion dollar company and bring it to the computer.

Like, there are some things that are done on paper that are not broken.

We're answering a question from Sky, who has started Fridgeworthy.

Well, let's see what's Fridgeworthy that we use first.

Fridgeworthy, a social network where people share their accomplishments.

People are using LinkedIn more as a social network.

I'm trying to see if there's like a website.

How do you launch an MVP of user-generated content platform?

If I make an MVP with minimal content, users will probably leave since there's not too much to consume.

the classic answer to this is 1, does your platform have a lot of replay value?

Is there any reason why I should come back daily or weekly?

I think that that's a really important question to ask Because even if you get a lot of people, if there's no reason for them to come back, it doesn't really matter.

I think, 2, is there a smaller community that if that community was using the product, they would find it useful, even if others weren't?

The classic, I guess now old example of this was Facebook at Harvard.

Like, as long as the Harvard kids were using it, or even a class, even just 1 of the grades in Harvard was using the product, it was useful.

And so therefore, they didn't need to have millions of users day 1.

Literally, users on the order of a couple thousand was very useful.

So the way that I'd be thinking about this question is 1, how frequent do I get value out of it?

If it's not that frequent, is there any value I'm creating?

2, is there a smaller population of people who can find this useful even if all their friends aren't using it?

And those people might use it, like have the problem or whatever on a more regular basis.

So start with like a focused smaller group.

I think there's always, you know, tricks of the trade, like generate them yourself.

A lot of the best user generated content networks like 9GAG, which is now this massive meme website, was started by scraping memes from other sites.

That's not, that shouldn't be something too crazy to think about.

So in this case, if you're building a network for people sharing their accomplishments, you could look to where people are already sharing this and prime it by grabbing the accomplishments.

For example, if someone's tweet, if you're trying to get someone who's already on Twitter onto your platform, you could potentially go through each person's Twitter account and scrape the things that they're proud of.

Crunchbase is actually an interesting example of this.

Before people cared about their Crunchbase profile, TechCrunch just built the profiles on Crunchbase.

With media reports and so on and so forth.

And then after a while, people cared about their profile, and so they tried to keep it updated.

And when I'm thinking more about this problem, it's true.

There's all these different platforms that people may participate in.

So, that's a service right there, like not having to generate your own page.

We're building self-driving cars for ride sharing and retirement communities and for schools in the US.

Okay, so I'm imagining like club cars or whatever.

Please share some of your advice for founders like us with a product that can take a very long time to launch.

How do we get users even before we launch?

How can we generate sales even before we launch?

I'm currently helping 20 bio companies that are all working their way through the FDA process.

And we've also funded a lot of supersonic aircraft companies that will probably take a little while to launch.

So There's a couple different ways that you can go with this.

I'd say that in areas where there's the possibility for harm or there's safety concerns, you have to be extremely careful about what you consider an MVP in any way that can actively harm somebody.

So, that having been said, we have had companies test smaller versions of their larger vision.

Some of the best hardware companies that I've worked with even though they now make their own hardware and they build a bunch of custom stuff.

They started by using off-the-shelf systems like Raspberry Pis, cameras, just existing technology, and put them together in interesting, novel ways.

So in this case, like, there is now, you know, more and more kind of off-the-shelf tech than you could use to craft together a, like, a rudimentary self-driving car.

I think for getting back to, like, I guess, like, why we work on MVPs, 1 reason we do is to actually validate that people want this.

The second reason we work on MVPs is to demonstrate that we as founders have the skills and capabilities to like, to, to kind of like, take the problem from just an idea to an actual implementation, even if that implementation is not the long vision of this.

So in this case, it's very easy to have the idea to say, I want to build a self-driving car or something like that.

There's a huge discrete bump between people who have the idea for a self-driving car and people who have built something that resembles it.

So in this case, building something that demonstrates your capability could separate you dramatically from the pack.

So we've had companies that are now off building, like Embark, which builds self-driving trucks.

Like literally, they're running on the streets, the highways in Nevada.

I think at Demo Day, they had a golf cart that they rigged up with 6 cameras.

It might have just been remotely driven or something like that.

There's a great comic on how to build an MVP and it literally is someone building a car, but the first step is building a skateboard, and then you build a bicycle, and then you build a car.

So you could apply the same logic here, that if you're trying to figure out how to build something that's autonomous that works in these communities, maybe you start with an autonomous wheelchair.

You just create, or 1 of those personal Hoover things.

And it still kind of accomplishes the overall goal of making something that's for retirement communities for example But much safer much cheaper And that actually sounds like kind of a cool idea.

The couple other parts of this question, how do we generate sales before we launch?

I actually think that that is, sales are hard.

Generating letters of intent or agreements to pilot shouldn't be very hard if there's a lot of demand for this sort of thing.

So being able just to get your customer to sign anything, even if it doesn't have a price on it, is evidence that you can sell to an investor and is often seen as more valuable than not having it.

So some other things that people have done in this way is if your plan is to sell cars, maybe the first thing you do is you sell the service.

So you don't have autonomous self-driving cars yet, but you do have yourself.

So what if you ran a car-sharing service in this retirement community to start?

That would demonstrate to people that there are people who want to use smartphones to request cars, that kind of thing.

And you could literally get started tomorrow doing that, potentially.

We facilitate the servicing of users' vehicles so they do not need to leave the home or office.

Servicing that seems like an awkward way of saying we're a car mechanic that comes anywhere you are.

I think this is a perfect example of like the description requiring examples, because servicing does not put a picture in my head, as opposed to refueling, changing the tires, doing an annual checkup, all those things create pictures in my head

and also there's probably something that you're starting with I imagine that you're not like servicing every end-to-end thing in the car to start So some of the best pitches like like Michael said they cause you to like visualize what the service does But here's actually a problem that a lot of founders run into, is they think that their 1 liner or their short description has to encompass like everything that they'll ever do under the ends of the earth.

Because they think that like investors only will get excited by these like big dreams.

But in reality, like we're actually just trying to understand what your company is so that we could talk about something else.

And so your description doesn't need to be this all-encompassing future vision.

It's just like, we want to find out what you do quickly

If you tell us what you want to do today, it's a lot easier to tell us what your vision is.

My question is in regards to a quick launch with a lean MVP.

How do you launch fast while getting all of the legal taken care of to protect from liability?

So Ethan, the first question I would ask you before you even think about this is have you studied every startup that has failed trying to do this idea and do you understand why?

If not, you are doomed to repeat their failure.

you can start by looking in the YC database.

So I really think that the real number 1 question is, do you understand something that everyone else doesn't know about this space?

The other thing that I think is tricky is that The population that has the most problem with their cars tends to also be the population that is extremely price sensitive about fixing their cars.

And so make sure that you have some insight on how you can be offering the cheapest option.

Because if you're, the kind of issue here is a lot of people like to go with luxury and high price first, but the problem is like you're solving my car breaking, which is way less common if I bought it a year ago.

And So make sure that you're actually lining this up so you actually have a product that can have demand.

So yeah, like to me, there's some fundamental things you want to make sure you knock out here.

We've seen this idea die a number of times.

We've seen it in other countries as well.

In terms of the liability question, you've got to be extremely careful Especially when you're dealing with like large expensive items that people care about The way that I like to think about this is, trust your gut.

You're usually not going to try to put yourself in a position where you're taking too much risk naturally.

So listen to yourself and listen to other people when they bring up problems that they think you might encounter.

This one's, OK, can you pronounce that 1?

We build a home wellness service and products marketplace for people's wellness objectives.

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YC SUS: Michael Seibel and Eric Migicovsky discuss How to Launch an MVP