Question 1

What is a minimum viable product, really?

Accepted Answer

The **smallest thing you can build that tests your riskiest assumption** — which is not the same as a cheap, cut-down version of your product, and the confusion between those two causes most MVP failures.

**The original intent.** From Eric Ries's lean startup work: an MVP is an **experiment**. Its purpose is **learning**, not shipping. You identify the assumption most likely to be wrong and most damaging if it is, then build the least thing that tests it.

**The common misreading.** "MVP" is used to mean "version one, but worse" — the full product with features removed, built over months, launched to indifference. That is not an experiment; it is a slow, expensive bet on the same unverified assumptions.

**The question that fixes it: what do you most need to find out?**

**If the risk is "will anyone want this?"** — a landing page describing it, with a signup or preorder, tests demand in days. No product required.

**If the risk is "will people pay?"** — try to sell it before it exists. Taking money is the only reliable evidence of willingness to pay; expressed intent is close to worthless.

**If the risk is "can this be built?"** — a technical prototype, with no interface at all.

**If the risk is "will the workflow work?"** — deliver the service **manually** behind a simple interface. The **concierge** and **Wizard of Oz** approaches do this deliberately, and several well-known companies operated this way far longer than customers realised.

**Why manual delivery is underused.** It feels like cheating and is the fastest route to real learning: you find out what customers actually ask for, and you can change it instantly, because there is no code to change.

**What an MVP still needs.** "Minimum" does not license something broken. It must be **good enough that a failure tells you something about the idea** rather than about the execution — otherwise the experiment is uninterpretable, which is the other common failure.

**Narrow the audience rather than the quality.** A complete experience for a very specific group beats a poor one for everybody.

General information, not business advice.

Question 2

What is product-market fit, and how do you know you have it?

Accepted Answer

The point at which a product satisfies a real, strongly felt need in a market large enough to build a business on — and the honest answer to how you know is that it is unmistakable when you have it

Question 3

Should you build or buy software for your business?

Accepted Answer

Buy, unless the software is the thing that makes you different — which is the general rule, and the interesting part is why businesses so consistently talk themselves out of it. The case for buying:

Question 4

What are the common mistakes to avoid when starting a business?

Accepted Answer

Common mistakes to avoid when starting a business include lack of a business plan, underestimating costs, ignoring market research, and neglecting marketing.

Question 5

What are unit economics?

Accepted Answer

The revenue and costs attributable to a single unit — one customer, one order, one subscription — stripped of everything else. The question they answer is simple and brutal: does one of these make

Question 6

What is value-based pricing?

Accepted Answer

Setting a price based on what the outcome is worth to the customer, rather than on what it costs you to produce or what competitors charge. It is widely recommended, rarely implemented, and it

Question 7

How does business-to-business selling actually work?

Accepted Answer

Through a long, multi-person process in which the decision is rarely made by the person you are talking to — which is why techniques borrowed from consumer selling fail so consistently. What makes it

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