Mastering the Pivot

I've had the privilege of working with a startup company over the last few months - BuildersCloud, mentioned in an earlier post - and it's given me the chance to watch some of our Values and Value Creation learning in action.

I'd like to share a couple of examples:

First, the idea of an MVP: Minimum Viable Product. Going back to Steve Blank in "The Startup Owner's Manual" and Eric Ries in "Evangelizing for the Lean Startup", this is the idea of Just Getting Something Out There. I have to say as an introvert and recovering perfectionist, this concept is a little foreign to me, so I've had to set aside my biases.

The BuildersCloud interface has a total of... about four tools. At first I would have said, "What can you possibly do with four tools?" and pointed out other more button-pusher friendly interfaces such as PlanGrid's as possible examples.

It was after watching the videos above, I had something of an "aha" moment where I thought, "What if these were the only four tools contractors needed?" Then we'd be doing a perfect job with our MVP.

I'm still having a hard time convincing my scientist background how you'd actually go about testing the features people really want. Do you switch them up every week? Do you set up a control group and see which version gets the most hits? I realize that business isn't exactly like that. And at the same time, perhaps business is quite a lot like that. And that's the advantage in keeping features to a minimum.

Another point: Freemium pricing. This is the revenue plan under which BuildersCloud operates, designed to get a quorum of small contractors on board, while pressing those who can afford it - government agencies and utilities, for instance - to pay.

Now Eric Ries is pretty adamant about getting early customers to pay. As he tells it, the fact that certain visionaries were enlightened to buy even his "crappy" first iteration of IMVU told him that he had a winning product. But does this apply to a Freemium business model? And does it apply equally well to all products?

Instinctively, I would have thought a social networking service like IMVU ought to operate on a free trial basis to build initial momentum, but that's not what Ries did. So I wonder if BuildersCloud, being also a web-based, collaborative product, should be making as much of a deal about its free services.

Interestingly, the small contractors who the company originally targeted are fast being displaced by large corporate customers and agencies. So it seems people are willing to pay. And this brings us to the last item:

The Pivot: Working in the constant flux of a startup environment, I think I know exactly what Steve Blank is saying when he talks about "search" vs. "execution" mode. The change of target customer just mentioned - from small business to large construction company - has already wreaked havoc on our original branding scheme as we morph from cutesy to sleek.

Part of my work is drafting marketing materials, and I find myself turning pirouettes of my own as I seek to hone in on our marketing mission. And if I've learned my week's lessons, before I cobble anything too fancy together I'll remember to ask, "Is this MVP on track?"