Or, the No-Product Framework
In recent years, there has been a marked shift among founders reverting to the old practice of launching full-fledged, bloated ‘MVPs‘. A trend among startup founders we work with is to once again launch products after months of extensive research and product development, sinking resources without much by way of actual product demand validation.
The Lean Startup methodology advocates developing a no-frills minimum viable product (MVP) and launching it as quickly and efficiently as possible. However, ‘minimally-viable product’ has lost its meaning.
I’d like to propose a somewhat radical idea in line with the philosophy of testing out a startup hypothesis with minimal wastage of resources. Yes, you read that title correctly. Just launch. Without a product.
In this article, I would like to propose a structure for framing problems in such a way that product hypotheses can be tested without a conventional product. I can assure you that it works – I’ve done it myself.
Table of Contents
- Or, the No-Product Framework
- Or, the No-Product Framework
- The drawbacks of this approach
- The drawbacks of this approach
- The drawbacks of this approach
- The drawbacks of this approach
- The drawbacks of this approach
What launching without a product actually means
The concept is fairly simple – it means testing a business hypothesis and giving users its core value proposition without the aid of an app.
Fundamentally, it focuses on identifying the single main value proposition and replicating manually the process that the product would follow to deliver this value. As customers grow, the emphasis is on using no-code tools and integrations to automate the process as quickly as possible.
This No-Product Framework allows you to test what you are building and evaluate your product more easily, without sinking time and money into building even a barebones MVP.
The problem with Minimum Viable Products and Minimum Viable Services is that people tend to think of the ‘Product’ or ‘Service’ as the end goal, not the first basic beta prototype.
Another technique, the Riskiest Assumption Test, aims to reduce this psychological feature bloat by emphasizing testing out just the single most critical assumption first. The issue is that often this leads founders once again to building a product, albeit with a limited feature set.
What launching without a product actually means
The concept is fairly simple – it means testing a business hypothesis and giving users its core value proposition without the aid of an app.
Fundamentally, it focuses on identifying the single main value proposition and replicating manually the process that the product would follow to deliver this value. As customers grow, the emphasis is on using no-code tools and integrations to automate the process as quickly as possible.
This No-Product Framework allows you to test what you are building and evaluate your product more easily, without sinking time and money into building even a barebones MVP.
The problem with Minimum Viable Products and Minimum Viable Services is that people tend to think of the ‘Product’ or ‘Service’ as the end goal, not the first basic beta prototype.
Another technique, the Riskiest Assumption Test, aims to reduce this psychological feature bloat by emphasizing testing out just the single most critical assumption first. The issue is that often this leads founders once again to building a product, albeit with a limited feature set.
