New Website Builds Minimum Viable Products for Startups

by rcavezza • 16 years ago

46 45 16 years ago

I love this idea for a service. I could see using it a lot even though I'm a programmer.

Ok, here's an MVP I want. What do you think of this:

I already have a twitter account where users submit quotes. It picks up 20k new followers a month and most quotes gets 200+ retweets. I'm starting to think it could be a "big" deal.

I want to test a leader board for submitters to see if that encourages even more participation and also test the top quotes put onto mugs and t-shirts to see if there's revenue potential.

I think the MVP is: - a static web page of the top quotes from the past week (pulled manually based on retweets) - the static page should have # of retweets and the profile photo and twitter name of the person submitted it - the top quote should be tied to a cafe press store - a few tweets announcing the leaderboard to my followers

I'm expecting you to be the master of best practices. What details am I missing? Do you have feedback on the MVP?

I'll check the comments here, but I'm willing to pay, so you can also email me: tony@tonystubblebine.com

syaz1• 16 years ago

How is the title relevant? If anything it only makes me want to stay away.

rcavezza9• 16 years ago

I thought it was relevant because I built the site in less than 90 minutes. I could be wrong, ideas for an edit?

Jun8• 16 years ago

90 minutes? What tool(s) did you use? Looks good.

rcavezza9• 16 years ago

Changed

PlanetFunk• 16 years ago

Much better title. The first came across as attention seeking. This title invites us to discuss your idea/site, not your stroke ego :)

danshapiro2• 16 years ago

I love this idea. But I'm not seeing the thing on your site that makes me believe you can do this (e.g. the big PORTFOLIO button). How do I get that confidence?

dpritchett9• 16 years ago

If you can really crank these out this quickly you should be able to get 5 things in your portfolio within a week. If there's a startup scene where you live you could make some friends by offering them your services at a heavily discounted rate.

Putting up a nice portfolio will allow you to get customers online. Getting local customers only requires a good pitch.

fierarul• 16 years ago

The idea is really nice (IF you can actually execute)!

I don't like the website though:

* all the toplevel links take you to another website. I usually expect those to take you to pages that are at least consistent with the top domain I'm coming from.

* FOUNDER'S BLOCK is listed twice.

* There is a list of people with a small blurb, that initially made me think they work for this website: Eric Ries, Steve Blank, Brant & Peter. Now I think it's just a list of people that "inspire" the author. Anyhow, it looks like a way to use the "celebrity" of these guys a bit.

* "rcavezza [atttt] gmail {dddottt} com." Bite the bullet, make actual mailto: links or at least some form. Don't make me hand-edit your email, it's an artificial barrier to getting new customers.

* "ANOTHER WEBSITE CREATED BY BOB CAVEZZA." Not to be rude, but it sounds puerile: "another website"?

* "Designed by STUDIO7DESIGNS": This is too prominent.

desigooner2• 16 years ago

Nice concept overall .. but i agree with fierarul... those links to Eric Ries, etc. almost felt as if they had some sort of an association with this project or had their blessings.

the website footnotes are wayyy too prominent .. and borderline boastful ..

and the "Yes, Build my MVP" link looks out of place as compared to the rest of the site. you might want to change the font style.

maybe you should spend some more time on it vs. using the "created in less than x hours" line.

dpritchett9• 16 years ago

I've always liked the cheeky footer at The Setup†:

"This is yet another waferbaby snafu. Follow us on Twitter, subscribe to the feed, or grab the Ruby source code (if you're into that sort of thing)."

"Another website by Bob" isn't quite as catchy but it's moving in the right direction.

† http://usesthis.com/

PaulJoslin• 16 years ago

An excellent concept. The reality is, most 'ideas' can be tried out in it's minimum form fairly quickly - with the added benefit that from day one, you are getting ranked in google, getting feedback, collecting email addresses and taking sign ups.

My personal approach, is to use word press on cheap hosting. I know how to customize word press to do almost anything I want and can get something up in a few hours to test the market (check for validity of my keyword analysis). Obviously not everyone knows php / how to customise word press, so your solution is ideal for those founders with the idea but no technical knowledge.

Once the idea has been tested, I'll then spend longer building the better product (if needed), knowing that the initial feedback I got from launching early will save me from building the wrong thing.

zeemonkee• 16 years ago

Great idea ! However a few points:

* How do I know you won't steal/sell my idea ? How do you handle NDAs etc ?

* What will the "MVP" buy me ? Do you do any design ? Sure it may take "2-3 hours" but what exactly does that entail for my money ?

* What about hosting ? Do you provide source code, or just host a demo for me ? How long is it hosted for ? Is it password protected or otherwise restricted from general use ?

* External links that look like internal links are confusing. Have them clearly designated as such.

csomar• 16 years ago

Only in 2-3 hours? A small web app takes at least 5 hours (if you consider design, JavaScript, PHP, Databases).

A startup should have a problem. The solution can take weeks. How are you going to do about it? Also if the founder is non-techie, you'll need to install the website yourself and that alone can take 2-3 hours if you are setting up a dedicated server.

grg• 16 years ago

This is a great idea, and I'm likely to use it in the near future.

One potential barrier to entry for users of this site:

What's stopping ibuildmvps.com from building an MVP for someone, and then (if the idea works well) taking that idea and developing it to the next level without them?

I'm not trying to say or imply that this is the intention of ibuildmvps.com. But (in America at least), you can't copyright an idea. Therefore, any of your clients would be opening themselves up to that risk.

Perhaps you should have a page on the site saying you'd be willing to sign a non-compete contract, in order to ease that concern (which may lower the barrier to entry for your service). Even better, maybe that non-compete agreement could be part of your TOS?

Again, I really do like this idea. I just wanted to add my two cents, in an effort to help your site become even better. Best of luck with this venture!

dpritchett9• 16 years ago

This sounds exactly like the Facebook origin stories, both the ConnectU one and the "Paul Ceglia owns 84%" one.

tomh-• 16 years ago

Why are the names of Eric Reis and Steve Blank there? Are they involved? If not, make that more clear, else it looks to me like you are trying to sell your services by using their names to promote it..

klochner• 16 years ago

He's using their names to promote it either way, it's just unethical if they're not involved.

rcavezza9• 16 years ago

False. Linking to people I admire. I considered changing this (as I changed many parts of the site based on HN comments), but I like the links as a tribute to them.

jordanmessina• 16 years ago

Like everyone else has said, the idea is cool. Other than that, and this might be harsh, but I don't think you could execute 99% of people's ideas and make a MVP. That's just how I feel after exploring this site for 3 minutes. The blog post about this website is a joke:

"I built my MVP (ibuildmvps.com) in less than two hours. Most of the time was spent waiting for godaddy to process my domain name and email address, and set up the hosting. Besides that, I found a free template online, built a button from a free form generator, created a Google Form, and tweaked the hell out of it. I also added links to many lean startup/customer develop icons who I admire."

This is cute, but it only makes me have less faith in you because none of it is impressive, so how would you implement my idea if it requires a little bit more than using google forms and pre-made templates? The description of the blog on the right hand side rubbed me the wrong way as well. My father has been programming since 1999, or so he would tell people, so the fact that you've been coding since 2002 does nothing for me. You don't have a portfolio anywhere to prove you know what you're actually doing. And if you're going to put your college and state that you received a Bachelors of Science degree at least put what the hell you got it in...

bconway• 16 years ago

I clicked on the link hoping there was some interesting technology involved, but it appears to be just someone offering contract work. Best of luck to him, but I'm not sure it's a very novel idea (I do it frequently, I imagine you do, too).

troels2• 16 years ago

That's exactly what I saw, too. Besides, trying to build any kind of product in 2-3 hours is impossible. MVP is still a product - not a mock-up.

dpritchett9• 16 years ago

The technology isn't noteworthy but the marketing effort is. Surely there are tons of would-be non-technical-cofounders on Twitter drinking the Lean Startup / MVP koolaid who would jump at the chance to get their idea online overnight.

Maybe they could get it done by calling your or going on elance, but the copy and presentation of this site gets them closer to yes by speaking in today's startup lingo.

troels2• 16 years ago

Sorry in advance for being harsh, but ...

You state that you can build a functional product in 2-3 hours? I call bullshit.

I mean - I know programmers are notoriously optimistic, but that's just getting ridiculous.

Unless you mean that you can throw together a mock-up, but that's not an MVP in my book.

rmc• 16 years ago

A mockup can be a MVP. A MVP is just there to attract potential customers and make them 'sign up' (e.g. an 'I'm interested' email)

dpritchett9• 16 years ago

I like it. I'm guessing you're going to crank out quick Rails skeleton sites to Heroku? This is a good service and i see nothing wrong with people using your sketched out web apps to begin the customer validation process.

If Tim Ferriss can test an idea with a non-functional landing page and a few hundred dollars in adwords, surely your service is at least as viable.

dpritchett9• 16 years ago

I recommend you focus your copy on the type of people you'd expect to buy your service and not the programmers here at HN that are offended by the boldness of your claims.

You're contracting a high hourly rate to non-technical would-be founders on the understanding that they can get to the validation stage after a few hours of your time without having to line up a co-founder/CTO. This is gold!

Hopefully patio11 will review you - I think this sort of marketing is his specialty.

I'd also recommend you downplay your fresh-out-of-college status to avoid scaring off potential customers. Being a bright young 20-something is fine, but the "MY COLLEGE CAREER" link has a "just fell off the turnip truck" feel to it.

notahacker• 16 years ago

I agree. First point on the copy is that people that are most likely to benefit from your services are the people that need someone to explain what a MVP actually is, and why they want one

rcavezza9• 16 years ago

Thanks for the comments everyone:

Here are some replies...

1.) This website took 90 minutes to create from idea to publishing.

2.) Eric, Steve, Brant, and Peter are in no way affiliated with this except they are awesome and helped inspire it.

3.) An MVP can mean many things to many people. I think you should do the least amount of work in order to validate/invalidate the most assumptions. "Get out of the building", show people sketches, create site mockups with buttons that don't work and calculate the number of people who pressed them,etc. Here's an article from Venture Hacks.

http://venturehacks.com/articles/minimum-viable-product-exam...

4.) Interesting thought about NDAs. I think I would take the same route as VCs. Don't sign them because they may inadvertently affect other projects you're working on. I probably won't be able to offer assurance except not doing it - also like VCs.

5.) What do I provide. Depends on the project, I think smaller is better to validate assumptions with the least effort. This way, you don't waste time building something people don't want.

user24• 16 years ago

make this into a marketplace which connects technical people with your target, instead of what it is currently which is a glorified "hey I'm a freelancer please hire me" page. Then you have a product. Screen applicants on both ends to ensure quality.

eduardo_f• 16 years ago

It's a good idea, but marketplace companies are notoriously difficult to start. You have to find customers that want to get an MVP and programmers willing to build it. It's like trying to do two different startups at the same time.

danshapiro2• 16 years ago

VCs get away with it because: 1) They have reputations; 2) They have the money 3) It's a practical necessity for someone who looks at a dozen pieces of IP daily.

None of those cases apply to you, and as a general rule, no competent entrepreneur will pay a contractor who won't sign an NDA.

My recommendation would be to sign enthusiastically, because it means you got a job.

rcavezza9• 16 years ago

Couldn't disagree more.

1.) This isn't about getting a job, it's about helping entrepreneurs start companies.

2.) I already had two queries that rubbed me the wrong way because they are similar to project I have in the works. Signing an NDA would probably jeopardize the work I've already done.

dpritchett9• 16 years ago

Point of protocol here - submitting your own startup idea for critique on HN is a respected tradition but the slightly misleading headline reads like a 3rd party submission.

Most of the ones I see are more like "Show HN: Rate my new MVP building service".

rcavezza9• 16 years ago

Apologies. The original headline said something to the tune of "I built this website in less than 2 hours" and I made this change. I don't think I'm allowed to change it again. Maybe an admin can make this change.

Tichy• 16 years ago

Frankly, this seems like complete bullshit to me. It is simply the contact form for a normal, run off the mill PHP developer. Nothing against PHP developers having web sites, but it is not HN stuff.

Also, I strongly dislike that the site evokes the impression of being associated with Eric Ries, Steve Blank and Brant & Patrick - I am guessing that is not really the case.

JangoSteve• 16 years ago

I like the idea of using this niche to market your contracting services. However, I have one small nag. Building an MVP is not simply about cranking something out as quickly as possible. It's about not wasting time where it's not needed. But that means if your MVP proves successful, you better be ready to continue building it. And I'm guessing a lot of people won't want their MVP to be some 3-hour one-off built in PHP. I hope you have more than that to offer.

floozyspeak• 16 years ago

this site reeks lame sauce, total poser hopin to snipe some startup noob traffic, good luck with that, toting the blank man and ries is additional lameage and to follow up with a web entry form where you say "2-3hrs" time = mvp, is flat out incorrect..

rcavezza9• 16 years ago

If you were me, much would you charge for this service?

dpritchett9• 16 years ago

I would peg your fee against the quality of your portfolio.

For a ballpark estimate, try charging an hourly rate pegged at the yearly salary you want to make divided by 1000. My reasoning behind this is the other thread suggesting that contractors need 2x an employee's salary to cover for a lack of benefits balanced against the idea that a standard 40 hours x 52 weeks work year has 2000 hours.

  Example:  $50,000 * 2 / 2000 = $50/hr.

Martin2010• 16 years ago

You gotta remember to A/B split test your MVP before reaching P/M fit yo

New Website Builds Minimum Viable Products for Startups

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