Howdy Founders 🤠,

Ever tried building a birdhouse and ended up constructing a full-blown mansion for squirrels? Yeah, that's how some of you are treating your MVPs.

New rule: You should be able to build your MVP in a weekend. If you can't do that, you've over-engineered some part of your solution and need to take a serious step back and re-analyze.

Let's Talk About:

• The Misunderstood MVP 🤔

• My Recent Business Adventure 🕵️‍♂️

• Idea of the Week 💡

The Misunderstood MVP 🤔

For those in the back who might've missed it, MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. Emphasis on Minimum. It's the simplest version of your product that still solves the core problem for your customers.

Think of it like making a sandwich when you're starving. You need bread and something in between—peanut butter, jelly, whatever. You don't need to bake the bread from scratch, whip up homemade jam, and churn your own butter. Unless you're into that sort of thing—but let's save that for your artisanal side hustle.

We can achieve this through some neat tricks, and I’ve consulted for startups before on this exact thing. Simplifying their product.

AI Chat for OnlyFans Models? → You don’t need AI, sign into the accounts yourself and chat. Charge customers and prove scale.

AI eBay Listing Generator from random item images → Tell users to send images to your email and the “ai” will respond with listing information / auto list for them. Meanwhile it’s just you doing it manually.

^These are real situations I’ve seen and helped with.

Unless you’re a software engineer, or have money to burn, you don’t have the privilege of building a fully featured MVP. So hack one together and prove the solution.

My Recent Business Adventure 🕵️‍♂️

Let me share a recent escapade into the thrilling world of dental compliance (try to contain your excitement).

I had this idea to build a SaaS for Dental X-ray and Laser registration—basically the state of Texas has some annoying compliance requirements for Radiation devices. Basically if ANYTHING changes to your dental office you have to file a new form to DSHS / possibly pay a fee.

The idea was, make it easy to fill out these PDFs with saved information (it was a lot of things like business info, docs for business filing, signatures, address, etc). Then I could go two routes, make the user pay for docs / download docs themselves. Or charge extra and file the documents on behalf of the dental office.

So, I did my homework. Market research, competitive analysis—the whole nine yards. Even did a fake sales call with a competitor who turned out to be an agency offering the same service, albeit less technical.

Their pricing? Super cheap. Cheaper than I could possibly go without living on instant noodles for the foreseeable future.

So, what's a founder to do? Well I looked at a LOT of keywords for SEO in the space and I really think there’s an opportunity to capture interesting traffic. Now how valuable is that traffic? Not sure yet, but worth a shot right? Worst case scenario I get to share a master class in SEO domination later.

The Lesson?

Sometimes, the smartest move is knowing when to switch gears. If you can't beat 'em on price or service, find another way to provide value. Plus, I won't have to hand-deliver documents across Texas. Win-win.

Idea of the Week 💡

SaaS Simplifier Toolkit 🛠️

Concept:

A toolkit designed to help founders strip down their over-engineered SaaS products to a true MVP.

How It Works:

• Feature Audit Tool: Analyze your product to identify non-essential features.

• User Feedback Integration: Prioritize features based on actual user needs and feedback.

• Roadmap Planning: Create a development plan that focuses on core functionalities first.

• Educational Resources: Access guides, templates, and best practices for building lean products.

Why It's a Good Idea:

• Promotes Efficiency: Helps avoid common pitfalls of over-engineering.

• Reduces Time to Market: Streamlines the development process.

• Educates Founders: Empowers entrepreneurs with knowledge and tools to stay focused.

So there you have it—a gentle reminder that when it comes to MVPs and business ideas, less is often more. Before you dive headfirst into building the next Swiss Army knife of apps or services, ask yourself if your users really need all those bells and whistles.

Remember, the goal is to solve a problem, not create new ones (like competing with a super-cheap agency or debugging overly complex code at 3 a.m.).

Feel free to share your own MVP stories, pivot adventures, or hilarious missteps. Hit reply, and let's swap tales from the startup trenches.

Until next time, keep it simple, keep it viable, and maybe, just maybe, get some sleep.

Love you 🙂,

Ronald