When NOT to use a Micro-MVP

When instead you ask for money

Read time: 3 minutes

Hey there - it's Brian šŸ‘‹

Sometimes a Micro-MVP doesnā€™t make sense to test your business idea.

Instead, ask for money.

Today, youā€™ll find out when you should test your business with a Micro-MVP (and when you test by asking customers for money instead).

Letā€™s make your business an outlier: šŸ‘‡

šŸ“ž Get a free call with Brian

Struggling to figure out if your business idea will work?

To make sure the upcoming Micro-MVP course covers the topics you need to test your business ideas, Iā€™m offering free consulting to give your business direction.

This session is for you if:
ā€¢ Youā€™re launching a new business
ā€¢ Your business isnā€™t getting traction and youā€™re looking to adjust
ā€¢ Youā€™re expanding your business and want to quickly test a few ideas

Get time with me here (for $0): šŸ‘‡

Imagine: you want to quickly figure out how your business will succeed

Imagine youā€™re trying to figure out what to sell.

Maybe youā€™re thinking about building an app and not sure who to sell it to.

Maybe you want to sell a creative service.

Or maybe you want to sell physical tools.

In all those cases (and for any business) you need to know:

Sell what? To who? With which words?

You may have a guess at the answer, but youā€™ll likely be wrong the first time and need to adjust your business.

You may need to adjust 3, 4, 5 times.

If it takes you too long to adjust, you run out of money, and itā€™s game over. So you want to test each part quickly. Adjust quickly. And get a lot of feedback.

Cue: the Micro-MVP.

A new system to quickly test your business ideas on socials (even with no followers) and let potential customers tell you which business they want.

So you can adjust fast and find the business that works.

Use Micro-MVP to guide your business

So hereā€™s when you use it - first, you build a list of ideas:

ā€¢ Different people you could sell to
ā€¢ Different products/services you could sell them
ā€¢ What words you use to persuade

Post your ideas on socials to narrow down your options. Then test your focus in customer interviews and full MVPs.

The Micro-MVP is a tool to help you guide the direction by narrowing down your options.

And by ā€œbuild list of ideasā€ I really mean steal ideas (like customer complaints) from Facebook or ask ChatGPT to think for you.

āœ‰ļø Reply to this email if you want the prompts.

When not to Micro-MVP

Once youā€™ve narrowed down what youā€™re selling to who, thereā€™s no better way to confirm your idea than getting customers to throw you money.

At that point: run tests that ask customers to pay.

If they donā€™t buy?

Back to the Micro-MVP to re-adjust your focus.

The faster you go through this cycle and adjust your business, the faster youā€™ll find what works. Each cycle builds bigger until you have a full business.

Micro-MVP is a new tool to get FAST feedback. It does not replace talking to customers or asking them for money.

Donā€™t waste months building something customers donā€™t want.

Comparing Micro-MVP to other tests

Common Mistake: ideas too vague

But Brian, this doesnā€™t work for me because Iā€™m only thinking about one product (or service).

So this sounds great! Solve 1 problem for 1 customer is the best way to go.

BUTā€¦ one big problem.

Most founders I speak with are far too general, so they donā€™t have options to Micro-MVP.

Iā€™ll use a diet and a piano example, but this applies to any business (tech, teaching, CPG etc)

Mistake #1: Problem is too vague

Most founders:
Iā€™m helping people lose weight.

Better:
Iā€™m helping people lose weight, who canā€™t keep the same diet long enough.

Best:
Iā€™m helping people lose weight, who canā€™t keep the same diet long enough, because they canā€™t break their bad habits.

Mistake #2: Customer is too vague

Most founders:
Iā€™m looking for piano students.

Better:
Iā€™m looking for high school piano students.

Best:
Iā€™m looking for high school piano students who want to play music professionally.

When you get 3 levels deeper than your peers, youā€™ll have far more options to choose from.

The Micro-MVP is perfect to help you narrow down those options. Once youā€™ve narrowed them down, run tests that get customers to give you money.

Boom! Thatā€™s it.

If you found this helpful, please forward this email to 1 friend or colleague. They'll appreciate you and you'll help grow the community.

See you next Thursday šŸ‘‹

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Whenever youā€™re ready thereā€™s 2 ways I can help you:

  1. Struggling to find out how to get customers to want your business? Get free time with me. Iā€™ll walk you through the Micro-MVP process.

  2. Promote your business to 13,900+ business owners by sponsoring this newsletter.

šŸ› ļø Outlier Links

šŸ§Ŗ Micro-MVP

How to get views on your posts (even with 0 followers)

Uncover your customerā€™s biggest pain (by stealing from Facebook posts)

šŸ§‘šŸ»ā€šŸ’» Clickworthy Content

How a broke kid built $150M business in 4 years

Interview with Brett Adcock - the man building humanoid robots

This software billionaire buys 500 SaaS companies (and never sells them)

šŸ§”šŸ»ā€ā™‚ļø Get to know Brian

Iā€™m sending you this email from a flight to Lisbon! Iā€™ve just spent this week building alongside 4 amazing entrepreneurs in Singapore. It's always energizing to hear how theyā€™ve built their business.

Any tips for Lisbon?

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