In this blog post I will explain how a simple MVP is already enough to generate income without the need to have a product ready to be shipped.
I believe most people think that a MVP is something that must be ready to be shipped. They understand that a MVP is a product with a reduced scope, but they still believe that it is something that must be ready to be shipped. For me, a MVP is something that allows you to get feedback from your customers even if your customers cannot use the product. A MVP is an idea’s preliminary validation; it’s a way to receive early feedback.
People that follow my work are aware that I produce quite a lot of content; every week I publish a blog post that usually, sooner or later, ends up as an ebook or a normal book. Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives is a good example. This book was completely written using blog posts. I did not stop there, either; currently I am writing my second book: “Get Rid of Performance Appraisals” that contains dozens and dozens of my blog posts.
Using blog posts is a great way to build small MVPs. You can actually write a lot of informative content this way, and validate your ideas within your target audience. By using this approach, you can see what the public thinks of your work prior to its final release, and you can see if there is space in the market for the niche you hope to fill by writing about your chosen topic.
In these two cases, the final product is of course a fully-written book—but as you can see, you do not need the final book to start getting a lot of good feedback on your “product”.
How can we generate money just with a MVP?
A lot of people think that to start generating revenue you must have a product ready to be shipped. This is not true, and I will present an example of this by showing what I have been doing over the last few months:
When I started my second book, I decided to ship every chapter to my readers. I wanted to receive feedback from them. I wanted to start receiving feedback as early as possible. This would allow me to change the text of my book before going live—I can guarantee you, at this moment the book is still ongoing, but I have already changed the content several times based on fantastic feedback received from my readers.
After finishing the first three chapters (the first part of the book) I decided to test the market. The final price of the book will be 20€, so I decided to ask people if they would be interested in buying the first part of the book for 5€. If they accepted, they would receive the full version at the time it was completed for free. If they wanted to wait for the final version they would need to pay the final 20€.
I added a second price for the second part: 10€ for the first and second parts and full updates for free until the final book.
I can tell you that I got a lot of people interested in paying the 5€ price; people told me they had already become quite intrigued by what I’ve written and they think it will just become better over time. This approach allows me to collect money sooner, giving me the possibility of hiring better professionals in order to get a better final version, something I simply could not do without this initial money.
Another great advantage that I see in this approach lies in the fact that people have already paid, so they are engaged and willing to contribute even further. This kind of collaboration has all the elements required to create a successful story. How many of you are able to get a similar level of engagement from your readers/customers before your product is out on the market?
As you can see, the book is still far from its final release, but I am nonetheless already able to generate some income. And, more importantly, it’s income that comes with plenty of feedback early in my writing process, which can be incorporated into the book. I believe this is a great example of how you can start to generate money without the need for a complete final product that is ready to be shipped.
If you are a writer, blogger, or anyone else that produces something for someone, I think you can start to do something similar in your life. Try to get your customers involved as much as you can, as early as you can, and you will see the results will be outstanding.
In reality my friend Pedro Campos gave me a fantastic example, a website where people are allowed to be involved in the early phases of game development. This involvement allows people to give great feedback to game producers in order to create fantastic games, you can find all the information right here.
What do you think? I would love to read your comments.
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