As a product manager and CEO for a tiny startup, I keep thinking about improving the product development process. The Amazon method of working backwards caught my eye recently, and I learned a lot from it. Now, I want to share my thoughts on how to take the method further, and speed up our product development cycle.
As a startup, we need to identify our biggest competitive edge, and squeeze all the juice out of it: Unlike the big companies, we can iterate much faster. This is because: 1. We have a much shorter decision-making process 2. We don't need to be afraid of destroying our brand. Most startups iterate by building MVPs(most viable products). But it still requires development efforts, and we can't afford too much of that. So how do we lower the cost on MVPs?
The answer is, MVPR(most viable press release). Before building the MVP, we can introduce the press release phase from the Amazon method. In other words, whenever you have a new product idea needs verification, you should start by composing a press release with beta sign-ups. As soon as the press release is ready, you should publicize it and let the potential users tell you what they think, i.e., "democratizing product development". If there's no traction at all, you can just abandon your idea and save your precious engineering efforts. If there's indeed traction, you can move forward to the MVP phase.
As a startup, we need to identify our biggest competitive edge, and squeeze all the juice out of it: Unlike the big companies, we can iterate much faster. This is because: 1. We have a much shorter decision-making process 2. We don't need to be afraid of destroying our brand. Most startups iterate by building MVPs(most viable products). But it still requires development efforts, and we can't afford too much of that. So how do we lower the cost on MVPs?
The answer is, MVPR(most viable press release). Before building the MVP, we can introduce the press release phase from the Amazon method. In other words, whenever you have a new product idea needs verification, you should start by composing a press release with beta sign-ups. As soon as the press release is ready, you should publicize it and let the potential users tell you what they think, i.e., "democratizing product development". If there's no traction at all, you can just abandon your idea and save your precious engineering efforts. If there's indeed traction, you can move forward to the MVP phase.
Thoughts?