Follow up Workshop 1:MVP, POC, Prototype : What does your venture really need?

I have been very pleased to have the first workshop attended by project leaders from the MENA region and also other people since the webinar was public and accessible to everyone:

@HadeerGhareeb , Egypt, Didi-Asks

khadija Ouabdelmoumene, Morocco, @Alphawomen

@salaheddine Ogontayo, Tunisia, Identity Co.

@sirine_bouslama , Tunisia, Datascience Academy

@ayari.taha , Tunisia, Artificial intelligence for alzheimer’s and dementia predicition

@MohsenMahdaoui ,Tunisia,PaillEco

@saif.eddine.laalej Morocco, Zelij Invent

@mohamed75 , Egypt, colex

@HIBA Sedouane, Morocco, diyafa
@khd_85

As it was the case in the previous labs, the workshop has been moderated smoothly and efficiently by @khouloud.ouesleti

Here a short debrief and a reminder about the main points of the workshop.

Workshop 1 is about helping you to start working on the solution and to move forward in the startup development process.

So, the first thing is to clarify what is meant by a POC, a prototype and an MVP.

POC is about the feasibility of the solution, while a prototype is about the desirability of the solution and an MVP’s aim is to get a feedback from the early adopters in order to pivot or proceed with the solution.

Depending on your product, there are many was to create your prototype, if it’s a tangible product you can use paper, scissors, felt pens and post it to create your prototype. If you are developing an app prototype you can use some tools like Marvel to sketch the app screenshots. The idea is not to spend much time and effort to avoid the IKEA effect. When it comes to prototyping less is more and the idea is to not try to create a complete product, so if you are in the wrong path, fail faster to succeed sooner.

The technique of design thinking can be used to create prototype especially when you try to improve an existing product or service. Here’s a short video about design thinking: https://youtu.be/_r0VX-aU_T8

I received a question from @HIBA about the prototype of a service, i.e. a tour/travel service. I answered that since the objective is to test if people are interested in the service, an MVP should be more relevant in that case.

An MVP is a way to get a feedback from your customers. You have the choice between a low fidelity MVP and a high fidelity MVP. It depends on the characteristics of your early adopters and the riskiest assumptions that you would like to test.

You can opt for various types of MVPs such as a landing page, a video, a concierge MVP, Wizard of Oz MVP, Piece Meal MVP, a single / limited featured MVP etc. In the presentation attached to this post, you can have more details about each MVP type and also examples of companies that have used it in the past.

*Also, I would advise you to watch this interesting video: https://youtu.be/r4HmIzCmMF8 *

To answer @HIBA ‘s question, I recommend that she used a landing page. @HIBA asked how to do if she has no IT skills and would like to create a landing page. I advised her to use some tools to create websites without having IT knowledge such as WIX, Canvas, Bitrix24, Simplesite etc.

We took the example of an online shoe e-commerce app and how to create limited featured MVP. The idea is to create a walking skeleton. You can find more details in the presentation.

We had also a very interesting Q&A sessions at the end of the workshop.

  • @ayari.taha shared with us his own experience with the video MVP and how it helped him to get insights from potential customers and users.*

Another question from @salaheddine about to whom the MVP should be addressed in the case of multisided app and I answered that he should focus oon the people that will pay for the app, i.e. the business partners.

We had also a question from Khadija about the choice of the adequate MVP type and I answered that it should be done taking into account the riskiest assumption. For example, if your riskiest assumption is your revenue stream so you should opt for al landing page and if it’s about the solution itself, other types of MVPs such as the wizard of Oz or single featured MVP can do the trick.

As always, a special thank to all the people having attends the lab and I hope that you found it helpful and useful.

Best,

Wajdi

Workshop 1 Presentation.pdf (3.0 MB)

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