Deadline Vs. Customers

Here's the wrong way of going about MVPs:

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1. Pick a random future date.
2. Ideate what all we can stuff in by that date.
3. Pick stories that are easy to build & simple to develop to meet the deadline.

The problem here is that the focal point becomes a date instead of the customer you're building for.

Ideally, it should be the other way around:

Identify the least amount of scope required to test your USP & impart max value.

Estimate that & then, flag a date.

However, this rarely happens.

With the hasty mindset, the MVP for Dropbox would just involve the ability to upload/download files without the intuitive UX or device sync capabilities.

It would fetch a resounding "meh" from initial users.

People counter with "If you're not embarrassed by your first iteration, you released too late."

Not a big fan of this mantra honestly.

Competition in most markets is intense. Customers yearn for signals to filter through the noise. A poor first impression can ostracize a chunk of users sending them to other options.

Don't count on second chances.

A MVP should exhibit why your product is unique. If you build a lesser me-too to make a deadline, then you have to work hard to regain that attention when you do eventually release something worthwhile.