{"id":41969,"date":"2023-10-20T15:17:47","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/guy-kawasaki-tells-startupsmart-why-mvp-should-go-beyond-just-viable-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:17:47","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:17:47","slug":"guy-kawasaki-tells-startupsmart-why-mvp-should-go-beyond-just-viable-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/guy-kawasaki-tells-startupsmart-why-mvp-should-go-beyond-just-viable-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Guy Kawasaki tells StartupSmart why MVP should go beyond just viable – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Minimum viable product, or MVP, is missing two \u2018V\u2019s according to current Canva and former Apple chief evangelist Guy Kawasaki.<\/p>\n

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He says a startup\u2019s MVP must not only be viable, but also valuable and validating.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou can have a product that is viable but not valuable,\u201d he tells StartupSmart<\/i>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When Kawasaki says valuable he\u2019s not talking about financial value, he\u2019s referring to something that can make people\u2019s lives better.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a higher test, and the \u2018v\u2019 for validation is because the startup could ship something that is viable, but what you want is validation that your vision is correct,\u2019\u2019 Kawasaki says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTo really knock evangelism out of the park you need something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a post on his blog, Kawasaki points out \u201cit\u2019s very hard to evangelise crap\u201d and a great product or service must embody five qualities: it must be deep, intelligent, complete, empowering and elegant.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While it may sound like those qualities are incompatible with the idea of an MVP, Kawasaki says that\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not being na\u00efve,\u201d he says with a laugh.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying every product needs to be perfect before you ship, the first Macintosh was hardly perfect, but it was still revolutionary.<\/p>\n

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\u201cArguably the more revolutionary the product, the more shortcomings it can have.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He says evangelising a product or service, is incredibly important for startups, and the only way it can be done is by people who genuinely believe the product will help people.<\/p>\n

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\u201cArguably the people who use evangelism, or need it most, are the people who are the most resource constrained,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you had infinite money and infinite time, you\u2019d just throw money at the problem.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe good news and bad news (for startups) is it forces you to go through an acid test. Is your product so great that people can, and want to, evangelise it?<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf it fails that test, it sucks.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Kawasaki says the organic growth of evangelisers of a particular product or service is a sign a startup is heading in the right direction, and can\u2019t be looked upon with too much suspicion.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAt some level, either the dogs are eating the food or not,\u201d Kawasaki says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t have evangelists, that\u2019s a pretty telling tale.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn many cases the company doesn\u2019t know what to do with them and doesn\u2019t like them. You can imagine conservative companies and people are starting to offer their help, in many cases for free, and you\u2019re wondering why \u2013 that can make some companies feel insecure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cApple would not be here today if it wasn\u2019t for the Macintosh user group and Macintosh evangelists.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIf Apple was incapable of doing it on its own, there\u2019s a good chance your startup needs help too.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kawasaki became Canva\u2019s chief evangelist after co-founder Cliff Obrecht noticed Kawasaki had been using Canva on his blog and tweeted him about it.<\/p>\n

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From there an agreement was made to bring Kawasaki on board in a full-time capacity, in exchange for an equity stake in the company and a $1 per year salary.<\/p>\n

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He says he joined because of the size of the opportunity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good to be here with all these engineers, trying to change the world,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not making slightly better banking software.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Minimum viable product, or MVP, is missing two \u2018V\u2019s according to current Canva and former Apple chief evangelist Guy Kawasaki.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}