MVP is not a cheap product, but an intelligent learning process.

The minimum viable product (minimum viable product - MVP) is not always a reduced / reduced version of the finished product. Determining the point at which MVP can be released can save you a lot of time, money and your tears right from the start.

Hronland Drones

I found a small startup at Standford, whose goal was to launch unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) with a hyper-spectral camera over the farmers' fields in order to collect hyper-spectral images . With their help, farmers could find out how healthy a plant is, whether there are diseases on the field or insects, whether there is enough fertilizer and water for plants to use. (The camera had sufficient resolution to shoot individual plants.) Knowing this, farmers could more accurately predict field productivity, identify areas of greater danger from pests, and add fertilizer and water when needed by plants.

(Drones were better than satellites because they were filmed at a higher resolution and could make a lot of passes over the field, and better than airplanes, thanks to a lower price.)
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All this information could help farmers increase yields (get more money) and reduce the cost of work, thanks to reduced water consumption and fertilizer / chemicals.

Their plan was to become such a data provider in modern business, called “ precision farming ”. They could go out to the fields every week, launch drones, collect and process data and give them to farmers in an understandable form.

Consumer research on farms

In fact, it was the fourth or fifth startup in my memory, which was aimed at precision farming, using drones, robots , high-tech sensors, etc. This team was able to attract my attention with the following words: “Let us talk about our communication with potential customers.” I listened to them, and, according to them, they really found their niche - yes, farmers understand that ignorance of what is happening in their fields is a problem , - and, yes - this data would be very useful to them - in theory.

So the team decided that this was really something worth working on and now they are raising money to create a minimally viable product. Everything is great. A smart team, really good experts on hyper-spectral images, drone design, a good start with a customer survey, an attempt to really satisfy the market, etc.

Do not be lazy during the development process

They showed me their goals and budget for the next step. All they wanted was a happy customer with their data. Wonderful goal.

They realized that you can get a happy client with the help of MVP. Their goals for the MVP were: 1) show the flight of the drone, 2) make sure that their software can “glue” several field images together and 3) provide data to farmers in the form in which they can understand them.

And they logically suggested that you need to buy a drone, a hyper-spectral camera , image processing software, spend months working on setting up the camera, platform and software to work together, etc. They showed me a draft of their budget for all this. Very logical.

And wrong .

Remember the goal

The team confused the goal of MVP, (a happy farmer willing to pay for this) with the process of achieving the goal. They had the right goal, but the wrong MVP. That's why.

The assumption of the team was that they would be able to deliver such information to farmers, for which they would pay. Point. Since they called themselves data providers, farmers did not care if they were receiving data from satellites, airplanes, drones, or through magic. Anyway, if only there was information.

This means that buying a drone, camera, software and spending time setting up all of this only wastes time and effort. Now They do not need to check any of this. Bye (There are so many existing evidence that a cheap drone can carry a camera , why check it again?) They asked for the wrong MVP to check. The first thing they needed to know was whether the data they would be able to receive would be needed by farmers.

I asked: “Wouldn't it be cheaper to rent a camera and a plane or a helicopter, fly over the field, manually process the data and see if this is the information for which they will pay? You can do it in a day or two, and you only need 10 of the money you need. ”Oh ...



They thought about this a bit and answered: “Listen, we are engineers, and we want to check all these cool technologies, and you want us to think whether people really need our product and whether it’s worth the trouble. You are right, we can do it. ”

Smart team. They are gone thinking about how to remake their MVP.

Lessons learned

• MVP is not always a reduced / cheaper version of the final product.
• Think how to reduce the cost of achieving the goal
• Good startup founders remember their goals.

The translation was made as part of the Tolstoy Summer Camp and MetaBeta summer start-up school.