A minimum viable product, or MVP, is a key part of the Lean Startup Methodology. The idea is that you build an MVP, measure its level of success, learn from this and amend the MVP based on these learnings. 

This is the build-measure-learn feedback loop.

OK, but what IS an MVP?

An MVP is the very least of your product that is capable of delivering your core value proposition to early adopters. 

Its purpose is to answer the question:

***Should this product be built?***

The MVP should be solving a problem that your users are having. If the MVP doesn’t do this, iterate, fix the value proposition. 

The sooner you do this the better.

So, how long should it take you to create your MVP?

Less than a month! Give yourself a deadline a month from now. If you can't deliver your MVP by then it's not really an MVP. 

The trouble is, if it takes you more than a month to create, then you could fall in love with your MVP...

Bad idea.

Your MVP should be fluid.

***Be water, my friend - Bruce Lee***

You must be willing to make bold, massive changes to your MVP based on the measurements and learnings derived from that MVP. If you take a look at most MVPs, they are nothing like the final product. However you will recognise the essence of the final product in them. 

Very Zen, I know!

So let's move from the ethereal to the more concrete, with some examples...

## AirBnB

AirBnB's MVP had no payment and no map view. Take a [look](https://web.archive.org/web/20101113092633/http://www.airbnb.com/).


## Zappos

In 1999 it was not obvious that consumers would purchase shoes online. Nick Swinmurn created a basic website with photos of shoes from his local mall. If someone ordered them he would go to the mall, purchase the shoes and send them to the customer. MVP.

# Summary

So hopefully now you know a bit more about what an MVP is and how it can help you validate the value proposition of your product offering. To find out more why not check out my free MVP cheat sheet pdf below!

[![mvp-book.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/morganpage/image/upload/v1607212880/mvp_book_ad3f627725.png)](https://mvp-secrets.com/)


What do Airbnb, Twitter, Spotify & Uber all have in common? 
They all started with an MVP! Read on to find out what an MVP is and why they are so important.

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What is a minimum viable product (MVP)

As a startup founder, your main focus is probably creating your product. That makes sense. You are, hopefully, passionate about what you are creating and want to spend your time making it is good as it can possibly be.
Unfortunately, due to this passion, you are probably neglecting something more important. Marketing your product. Having a great product is somewhat pointless if nobody knows about it. So please start marketing your product and start today.

## Where to Start
Simply. Always good advice, is the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid). So I'm going to list all the simple ways you can market your product today without too much effort or money. Definitely worth looking outside the box in the future but cover the basics below first.

## Social Media
Cover as many as you can manage. Manage multiple social media channels with the help of apps like Hootsuite, Buffer or Loomly. At the very least you should be posting to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter & YouTube but don't ignore Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest.
Also worth looking into TikTok, 850 million active monthly users and currently less competition… probably won't be like that for long.

## Blogging
Blogging is a great way to engage with your potential customers. It's important to optimise your blog posts for SEO (see below). You can simply use google to figure out what your potential customers are searching for by typing in a keyword and seeing what autocomplete suggests or look at the 'related searches' at the bottom of the page.

## SEO
Search engine optimisation is a great way to minimise your ad spend. Getting your main website or blog on the first page of a google search by a potential customer is your goal here. A huge topic in its own right, start simply by checking your website with a tool like Measure. This will at least check whether google is happy with you site and point out any major issues that need addressing.

![measure_founder.JPG](https://res.cloudinary.com/morganpage/image/upload/v1609608429/measure_founder_a33dffe218.jpg)
#### founderofa.com - Very little room for improvement

![measure_techcrunch.JPG](https://res.cloudinary.com/morganpage/image/upload/v1609608485/measure_techcrunch_9d58251e4f.jpg)
#### techcrunch.com - Could do better…

## Landing Page
It may be worth creating a dedicated landing page focusing on getting a potential customer to sign up to your email list (see below). Your website may not be ideally set up for this. Often they are more like a general information resource or brochure, not really designed for getting a sign up. A dedicated landing page can focus on pushing a lead magnet in exchange for a sign up. It is not unusual to have many landing pages each pushing a unique lead magnet. These landing pages can then be targeted with pay-per-click ads or linked from relevant blog articles or social media posts. See how this spider web hangs together?

## Email
Still incredibly important in 2020. A lot of successful entrepreneurs base everything around their email list. That's easy to understand since that email list is a channel that they have complete control over. Perhaps you could consider doing the same. This would mean trying to capture a potential customer's email from your website, blog or purpose built landing page.
Once you have that email list, nurture those contacts with newsletters, informative emails, video tutorials etc. Of course eventually you can try to sell to them ;-) .

## Ads
Left until last since ads cost money and you can do all of the above for free or at least a relatively small up front cost. However ads should still be part of your marketing strategy but definitely not your sole focus! Pay per click ads can be a fairly straight forward way to drive traffic to your landing page. 

## Summary
Social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter & YouTube), blogging, SEO, Landing pages, Email & Ads… Have I forgotten something? Of course I have but these are the ones you need to pay attention to initially. Some will work for you, some may not, some, like ads can give you immediate results, some, like blogging, take time but can be worth it in the long run. Either way you probably need to start spending more time (& money!) on digital marketing and you probably need to start today.

Interested in creating your own blog? Why not check out the free book below?

[![Book_Mockup_280_68836cb038.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/morganpage/image/upload/v1608338679/Book_Mockup_280_68836cb038_d6bbe4ea38.png)](https://blog-strategies.com/)

Why you need a digital marketing strategy in 2020 and how to get one today

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The Importance of Digital Marketing

So you spent the last year creating your book/course/SAAS/app/web-app/game, released it to the world and… crickets.

You, my friend, are not alone. I’ve been there, many people I know have been there, it doesn’t feel great does it?

However don’t despair, your work has only just begun. You may have spent a year (or more) creating your product, now you need to enter the shadowy world of sales…

What you need now is a sales funnel.

## What is a sales funnel?
Simply put, a sales funnel is a process that turns prospects into paying customers. It’s called a funnel because if you draw the process with the prospects at the top, those prospects funnel down to the bottom, where your product sits waiting for a sale.

Not everyone who sees an ad, buys the advertised product and not everyone who enters your sales funnel will reach the bottom and purchase your product. For instance if 100 people enter your sales funnel and 10 people purchase your product then you have a conversion rate of 10%. By the way, that’s considered a very good conversion rate!

![salesfunnel.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/morganpage/image/upload/v1607039140/salesfunnel_d0dfe952e2.png)

## The stages of a sales funnel
### Funnel Top — Awareness / Attention
This is all about driving traffic into the top of your funnel. There are many ways you can do this including: YouTube, social media posts, SEO, ads. At this point you shouldn’t be selling anything. You should be setting yourself up as an expert in the area where your product resides.

The prospect at this stage visits your landing page for the first time and moves to the middle of the funnel.

### Funnel Middle — Lead Magnet

This is where you give something away for free and engage your prospect for the first time. What you give away must be engaging and useful. It could be a mini-course, a webinar or an email series that contains useful content. At this stage you will want to try and capture their email address in return for the free offer.

Once you have the prospect’s email address, you can move on to the bottom of the funnel.

### Funnel Bottom — Nurture

Now you have the prospects email, it may be tempting to try and immediately sell to them. However usually you will want to build trust through a series of emails.

This stage can look quite different depending on what you are selling. High priced items will usually take more nurturing. There are various techniques that can be employed like first selling a lower priced item that creates a customer who is then more likely to buy a higher priced item.

What needs to be understood is that at this stage of the funnel a prospect can remain here for quite some time before making a purchase. Hence it is important to engage with them on an ongoing basis, building that trust so that hopefully, one day they will take the plunge and go ahead with a purchase. The good news being that once a prospect becomes a customer they are far more likely to spend more with you in the future.

## Summary

So hopefully you now know the basics of what a sales funnel is. Also, hopefully, you know why you should have one in place to avoid those pesky crickets and get the sales you deserve.

Of course the devil is in the details.

Copy is important, your landing page must be well laid out and convincing. Those emails should be automated and well thought out. There are upselling opportunities, SEO considerations, tracking of what and who you have sold to… quite a lot of work in fact.

Creating your product was the easy part ;-) .

![cricket.jpg](https://res.cloudinary.com/morganpage/image/upload/v1607040002/cricket_ce191d0b8b.jpg)

Entrepreneurs should know about sales funnels

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Why You Need a Sales Funnel

Here are five ways you can create a free blogging site. Each option is tested and rated to give you all the information you need to get started on your blog.
For each option we will create a board gaming blog with the same images and copy so that we can make a fair comparison of each blog.
 
One of the most important factors for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is [how fast your website loads](https://neilpatel.com/blog/google-pagespeed-insights/). For this reason I have included the lighthouse score for each finished blog homepage and a single post.

## Wix

Wix definitely makes getting up and running with a blogging site fast, free and easy. Signup is completely free and you can immediately start creating your new site based on a myriad of templates. There was a movie review blog template which seemed a close match for a board gaming blog, choosing that dropped me into the Wix editor where, with a bit of clicking around, I found out how to change the domain name and website name. Adding posts was extremely easy. With the first post I added the cover image in settings after just adding the blog text then needed to add the same image into the blog. That's going to get tedious quickly, I thought. The second post, I added the image to the post along with the blog text, went to add the image in settings->cover image... it was already added... nice.
Editing the website was... ok. Not sure I really got the hang of it in the short time I played with it. Never found out how to change the blog writer from winking red head to me. I'm sure if I had a little more time...

[Board of Games - Wix Edition](https://morganjpage.wixsite.com/boardofgames)

**Usable Blog Cost:** $7.50 / month

**Time to first 5 posts:** 20 minutes

#### Lighthouse Score - Home

![wix_home.PNG](https://res.cloudinary.com/morganpage/image/upload/v1607296636/wix_home_ed7bd13129.png)

#### Lighthouse Score - Post

![wix_post.PNG](https://res.cloudinary.com/morganpage/image/upload/v1607296689/wix_post_daa3d858cc.png)

**Pros**
- Quick to get started
- Nice blog editor

**Cons**
- Wix site was intermittently slow at times
- Website editor has a learning curve

<hr/>

## Wordpress

Wordpress probably doesn't need much of an introduction, apparently over 30% of the worlds websites run on it so it must be doing something right! However since it's been around for a while it definitely seems to be showing its age and is now considered to be a bit slow and cumbersome compared to the newer kids on the block.
A wordpress site can be self-hosted or created on wordpress.com. Since we are aiming for 'Free', the simplest way is to get started on wordpress.com. The free option is easy to miss but does exist, I had to make do with boardofgames853134908.wordpress.com, catchy! At this point you are pretty much left floundering in the wordpress admin screen with a tick list of items to work through. Name your site was straight forward but 'Create a Site Menu'? What's a menu widget? I just want blog posts and categories... So I created a menu1, not sure where it went but the tick list was happy. Well, must admit I eventually gave up. I'm sure wordpress is great if you can be bothered to spend a few hours learning its archaic ways. I just want to blog :-) .

**Usable Blog Cost:** $11 / month

**Time to first 5 posts:** N/A

**Pros**
- Has lots of plugins

**Cons**
- Terrible first experience

<hr/>

## Squarespace

After wordpress, squarespace feels positively next generation. Like Wix, there are lots of blog themes to choose from. Most of them seemed a bit 'fancy' for the board gaming blog but funnily a fishing theme called Fillmore seemed nice and minimalistic. Loved how easy it was to change the fonts and colour scheme, the editor has a nice logical flow to it. Unfortunately, although I could get started for free, **to publish the site, I needed to subscribe to a paid plan**. When it came to adding the blog posts, the experience wasn't as streamlined as it could be. Post images were tucked away in a menu and needed to be added into the post as well which was annoying. Medium and ghost certainly show their blog focused strengths in this area.

**Usable Blog Cost:** $26 / month

**Time to first 5 posts:** 20 minutes

The below score is probably unfair since the blog could only be viewed in the editor in the free version.

#### Lighthouse Score

![squarespace_home.PNG](https://res.cloudinary.com/morganpage/image/upload/v1607297283/squarespace_home_7a7e744e8e.png)

**Pros**
- Quick to get started
- Nice, logical editor

**Cons**
- Expensive

<hr/>

## Ghost

Ghost gets off to a bad start by asking for credit card details to sign up, this will not be a free option then. However I get 14 days free and the promise of no automatic billing so there is that... Once signed up you get put straight into the editor that is prepopulated with helpful posts. The first, 'Welcome to Ghost' post warns that this is not a platform for beginners, I think this sells this platform a little short. I had no issues getting my first post published and the default theme is wonderfully minimal and clean. Seems pretty beginner friendly to me, just perhaps overkill if your needs are super simple and you are on a budget. Due to the high monthly cost once benchmarked, I moved the ghost blog on to a free heroku dyno so that you can still see the final blog.

[Board of Games Ghost Edition](https://boardofgames.herokuapp.com/) - Will take time to load because on a free heroku dyno (sorry)

**Gotchas**

Add an image for your post using the post settings (top right cog). If you add it in the post itself it won't appear on the main page.

**Usable Blog Cost:** $29 / month

**Time to first 5 posts:** 10 minutes

#### Lighthouse Score - Home

![ghost_home.PNG](https://res.cloudinary.com/morganpage/image/upload/v1607297602/ghost_home_e88fa6dfc2.png)


#### Lighthouse Score - Post

![ghost_post.PNG](https://res.cloudinary.com/morganpage/image/upload/v1607297621/ghost_post_e1140738c5.png)

**Pros**
- Quick to get started
- Wonderful editor
- Great lighthouse scores

**Cons**
- Expensive


<hr/>

## Medium

Medium has no barrier to entry. Definitely recommended if you are a bit like me and like to procrastinate on what platform / technology to use. Just write a blog or two on medium, ask a publication if you can write for them (although you will probably get asked anyway if your writing is competent) and see if it is for you.
Of course it's not really YOUR blog. So it may be a great way to get started but might not be a good fit if you want to grow your own audience.

**Pros**
- Free to post

**Cons**
- You don't own the blog
- Affiliate links may harm blog visibility

**Usable Blog Cost:** $0 / month

**Time to first 5 posts:** 6 minutes

<hr/>

## Roll Your Own

You may notice that this blog uses none of the above. Although all the above options have their pros & cons, personally I like to spend a little more time up front and pay less in the long run in time and money. Using a combination of modern technologies and a pretty cool blog template I've been tweaking for the past few months I now have a blog platform I'm super happy with. None of the above can touch it for simplicity, price, seo & flexibility.

**Usable Blog Cost:** $1 / month

**Time to first 5 posts:** 30 minutes


#### Lighthouse Score - Home

![founder_home.PNG](https://res.cloudinary.com/morganpage/image/upload/v1607298427/founder_home_a7b25e1da5.png)

#### Lighthouse Score - Post

![founder_post.PNG](https://res.cloudinary.com/morganpage/image/upload/v1607298460/founder_post_c9d04a9151.png)

**Pros**
- Gives you total control
- Good lighthouse scores
- Cheap as chips

**Cons**
- Initially harder to set up

<hr/>

### Need more help deciding how to start blogging?

Download the FREE book linked below:

[![Book_Mockup_280_68836cb038.png](https://res.cloudinary.com/morganpage/image/upload/v1608338679/Book_Mockup_280_68836cb038_d6bbe4ea38.png)](https://blog-strategies.com)



Here are five ways you can create a free blogging site. Each option is tested and rated to give you all the information you need to get started on your blog.

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Create a Blog Website for Free

Practical advice on how to create an online business and become a successful startup founder entrepreneur.

What is a minimum viable product (MVP)

What do Airbnb, Twitter, Spotify & Uber all have in common? They all started with an MVP! Read on to find out what an MVP is and why they are so important.

December 5th, 2020

AirBnB

Zappos

Summary

Author