{4} MVPs & Barcodes
Knowledge from Christian Blavier and Vitaly Friedman
Chat #1: Christian Blavier
Currently building in public @readablefm for podcasters 🎙
Christian Blavier:
Build the right feature.
Don't build the feature right.
This is the essence of your startup's MVP.
Even better if you can build the feature fast!
Once validated by the market, you'll be able to make the right feature right!
Dane Lyons:
💯
When deciding which feature to test, do you rely on user feedback, your gut, or a combination of both?
Christian Blavier:
Both!
Whatever the method or frameworks we use, I still believe a solid founder's instinct is required.
Dane Lyons:
Also agreed.
There are cases where a founder has too much ego. They neglect to validate their ideas and wind up with something people don't use.
It's also bad to let users completely run the show. You wind up with an odd out-of-sync feature set.
Finding that healthy mix of risk-taking and intuition-driven product development that works in collaboration with users is the key.
Christian Blavier:
Yep. Harder done than said 😅
Dane Lyons:
Oh definitely. It's hard to give your users a seat at the table.
Creating a user board is tempting, but representative systems are fundamentally flawed. I'd rather build a system with a tighter feedback loop that engages a more diverse segment of users.
But continually asking users for feedback can be a drain. People would rather use the tool than spend time answering questions about it. So the system needs to be frictionless without being overly superficial.
In a perfect world, analytics should be good enough to allow users to "vote with their behavior". But I've never seen a system that embraces that mindset and delivers results.
Focusing on analytics can also be overly quantitative. It would also need a qualitative element.
Christian Blavier:
My initial take on this while building readable.fm will be:
- user event tracking
- using external feedback + roadmap product (such as canny.io)
- 1 user interview per week
Conclusion:
I’m aligned with Christian’s take on building scrappy features and getting validation before investing the time to “build it right”. I also think his take on balancing intuition with feedback is on point.
Chat #2: Vitaly Friedman
UX Designer. Front-End Developer. Editor-in-chief, creative lead @SmashingMag. Speaker. Loves good design patterns and doesn't give up easily.
Vitaly Friedman:
Didn't know that! How Barcode Error Checking Works (https://typefully.com/DanHollick/barcode-error-checking-Hq7fT0x…), a wonderful short read, written by @DanHollick.
Each digit on the left has an odd number of black lines whereas on the right each digit has an even number of black lines.
Dane Lyons:
Do you visually prefer barcodes or QR codes?
Vitaly Friedman:
Good question, Dane! :) I don't think I have any preference, not really a big fan of either ;)
Dane Lyons:
I somewhat prefer QR codes for the pixelated vibe. But I wonder if there is a more human-friendly way of presenting compact, easily scannable data.
Conclusion:
Barcodes & QR codes are interesting. There might also be an opportunity to disrupt scannable codes and build something more user-friendly.