The Minimum Viable Product or short MVP - And why its all about your target groups
The Minimum Viable Product or short MVP - And why its all about your target groups
And how to quickly test whether an idea is viable or not to continue building it for real - does it even need an MVP?
Noah says it nicely and I see my failure clearly in front of me:
If you create, refine, re-refine and re-re-refine a product in a vacuum without clients wanting to buy it, you won’t get any further.
Better build a quick landing page, test it, and only proceed if there are clients interested in it.
If not, stop immediately and move on. Little time wasted, much learned and time to test the next idea.
And very important:
It has to be Customer First
Call or text 3 people right now and ask them if they would pay you to walk their dogs.
No one has that problem. Instead they have problems finding dog sitters when travelling.
Ask for their next travel dates and have them pay you a deposit. They pay: jackpot!
That is your MVP. The easiest it can get. Even if you plan to build an app. It does not matter. First find your customers, then you can build something.
Because the key essentials of any business are:
Solving real problems
Real customers are willing to pay for
With real revenue flowing in
How can you make sure to get real customers, solve real problems and real revenue?
Where to find real customers
It is best to start in your Zone of Influence. Starting where you are closest to.
Who they are
What they know
Who they know (most important)
Key is to start within one’s own network.
People you have human connections with, you already know, who are in your personal networks, your tribe, the people you can most easily contact right now, today.
It is people closest to you:
Your friends
Your former colleagues
Your communities
And if you don’t have access to the people you want to sell to, then don’t start a business targeting these people.
It will be a hell of a difficulty to sell to clients you don’t even know how to reach.
For dog cookies, dog parks could work too though, it’s an easy walk and a real human conmection is built with the chance to conmect and directly ask.
And with that, we have to tackle a challenge now!
The Top 3 Groups
It is time to bring this to practice. What are your top 3 groups to target?
Who do you have easy access to that you would be EXCITED to help? Neighbours, religious friends, tennis buddies, cooking friends, … whomever it may be.
Make sure to follow these extra tips when choosing your tarket groups:
The better you understand them the better
The more specifically you can speak to their problems, the better
I will now do that exercise and will first do a brainstorming of these groups, before narrowing it down to the top 3 I focus on.
Brainstorming my own list of potential client groups
Customer Success Managers in B2B SaaS companies
Account Manager / Seller in the same industry
Corporate companies (Banking, Retail, SaaS) wanting to use and investing in Linkedin Sales Navigator
Companies investing in Sales Enablement Solutions
Women in Women Networks like Mentoring networks, Women in SaaS, Sisterly, …
People in New York City, specifically Manhattan
CS, Sellers in Germany, interested in the US
Employees at Linkedin
Members of Parlor Social Club interested in networking, connection, relationship building
Company Founders
Employees who want to start a side-business, but don’t have time
People who want to work in Tech, but don’t get in
People playing tennis
Dog Owners in New York
People on Linkedin posting actively
Solopreneurs in New York
Women Entrepreneurs and Wannapreneurs
Tech People in NY looking for B2B SaaS people / Business people
Founders of tech products/solutions (in Customer.Success/AI) looking for people supporting them in their sales activities
….
Let’s do some thorough analysis.
Groups Analysis
Linkedin Size
I first check for network size within some groups here. Plus whom I could directly contact.
Linkedin Network = 3907 people
Keyword Customer Success = 730+ Contacts (precisely 596 with “Customer Success”), Customer only = 1900+, Customer Success Manager = 348
Keyword Account Management = 1000+ (precisely 841 ;))
Keyword Relationship = 1000+, Relationship Manager = 169
Sales = 2000+, Sales Manager = 423, Account Executive = 394, Account Manager = 729, Vertriebsleiter = 121 (sales leader in German), Vertrieb = 634 (German word for sales)
Demand Generation = 81
Renewals = 76
Onboarding = 331
Solution Engineer.= 14, Solution Architect = 23
Enablement = 302 (Sales Enablement = 194)
Founder = 774
Human Resources = 412
Linkedin = 668
Product Owner = 226
Munich = 526
New York = 256
Tech= 598
Product = 1000+, Product Manager 665
AI = 425+, Artificial Intelligence.=.199, Künstliche Intelligenz (German word) = 51
Content = 833, Content Manager = 25, Content Creator = 19
Branding = 405, Branding Manager = 1
Marketing = 2100+, Marketing Manager = 320
Software = 1100+
Software Developer = 214 (Business Developer = 50)
Engineer = 347, Software Engineer.= 71
NoCode = 4
Automation = 300
Community = 639, Community Manager = 36
Knowledge Manager = 3
Communications = 1400+, Communication(s) Manager= 55+19
Entrepreneurship = 745, Entrepreneur = 213
Education = 533
Finance = 611, Finance Manager = 16
Speaking = 632, Public Speaking 374, Speaker = 240
Writing = 430, Writer = 59, Author = 96
Research = 1100+, Researcher = 189
Creativity = 208
Design = 822, Designer = 144
Podcast = 97
Digital = 1200+
Digital Marketing = 521, DM Manager = 93, Digital Marketer = 12
Digital Sales = 81, Selling 41, Modern = 0
Transformation = 494, T Manager = 61, Digital Transformation = 340
Change = 907, Change Management = 514, change manager = 17
Mind = 109, Future Skills = 273, Mental = 91
Talent = 499, talent developer = 2, TM = 8
Data = 866, Data Analyst = 35, Data Scientist = 27
Website = 372
Go To Market = 75
Software as a Service = 426, SaaS 798, IT = 1700+
SaaS & Relationships = 383
Product Marketing = 221
Storytelling = 146
Copywriting = 82
CRM = 905
Content Creation = 104,
Media = 1500+, Social Media = 1000
Publishing = 136
Recruiting = 416, Recruiter = 142
Fashion = 130
Ecommerce = 126
Banking = 267
Investment = 321
Insurance = 216
Headhunting = 84
Leader = 518
Analysis = 1200+
Hiring.= 244
Retail.= 356
B2B = 922
Singapore.= 147
Growth = 962, Growth Manager = 11
Innovation = 625, Innovation Manager = 16
Career Development = 53
Personal Brand = 22
Journalist = 42
Mentoring = 388, Mentor = 392
Sales Navigator = 234
Business Development = 1600+, Sales Development.= 277
Women in Tech = 12
Tennis = 37
Dogs = 10, dog 23
Solopreneur = 3
Future = 593
Creative.Business = 9
Wellbeing = 42
Coaching = 762, Coach = 464
Culture = 411
Creativity = 208
Curiosity = 51
Psychology = 242, Psychologist = 18
Consulting = 1400+, Consultant = 1200+
Scaling = 143
Venture = 251, Accelerator.= 106
Venture.Capital = 126, Private Equity = 103
Sustainability.= 242
Learning = 577, Learning Manager = 2
Learning & Development = 123
OK, I think that is enough for this type of analysis now.
Let’s break it down into the biggest groups:
Marketing = 2100+
Sales = 2000+
Customer = 1900+
Business Development.= 1600+
Media = 1500+
Communications = 1400+
Consulting = 1400+
Software = 1100+
Research = 1100+
Analysis = 1200+
Social Media = 1500+
Relationships = 1000+
Product = 1000+
==> Based on these broader topics, my key Customer Target Groups are in Marketing, Sales and Customer Business.
Let’s break it down a bit further in key roles, shall we:
Consultant = 1200+
Founder = 774
Account Manager = 729
Product Manager = 665
Leader = 518
Coach = 464
Sales Manager = 423
Account Executive = 394
Mentor = 392
Customer Success Manager = 348
Engineer = 347
Marketing Manager = 320
It’s very interesting to see my own analysis of target groups on Linkedin.
Given this analysis, my target groups should be consultants, founder, account manager, and product manager.
Given, that I do not want to consult consultants and am not in that space, this group is out. But I love helping founders. I love people who build things, so this is definitely a group I like. Do I know many founders? Yes, I know quite some founders and I have access to several ones of them directly in new York too - went to various meetups here and met them. Potential issue may be however, that they do not have that much money, but let’s see.
Account Manager. I know several Account Manager, I worked in that field mayself, I know how they work, what is important to them, what they struggle with. Do I know deep frustrations? Some of them. Let’s see, given the easy access, they could be a good target group.
Product Manager. I love tech products. Do I understand the target group well? Not 100% sure. I better know developers and engineers. So let’s take the broader group.
And on top of that, we have the broader group of people in Marketing, Sales, Customer-focused. I need to break this down more further later.
On top, there are some keywoard topics that stand out as well as potentially some good connectors here, for example many connections being interested in Growth and Innovations and Entrepreneurship, but only few of them act in such a role.
We keep that in mind for later.
For now,I’ll do one more broad analysis of the Linkedin keywords before moving on: the AI analysis.
Linkedin Size AI Analysis
I checked several keywords and asked ChatGPT to do a cluster analysis.
Here is my prompt for that:
“In the following overview, you find words and next to them the number of times they show up in the profiles of people in my Linkedin network. Can you cluster the words by similarity and determine which clusters with the relevant words within are mentioned most often? I want to have an analysis which word clusters are used most often to draw conclusions about potential target groups. Thanks and ask me if you have questions. {copy-Pasted Words plus frequency from the previous analysis}
The result was not an all-inclusive cluster analysis, so I did one more prompt after the initial analysis:
“Can you do it again, but now include all words with their respective frequencies please”
The analysis was still not all-inclusive, but hey, isn’t it about the key target groups?
The result were the following:
Customer-related Roless = 2844
Sales & Account Management = 5142
Marketing & Digital = 4830
Tech & Software = 5836
Data & Analysis = 2128
Engineering & Product Development = 2238+
Human Resources & Coaching = 2196
Consulting & Business Development = 4200+
Finance & Investment = 1215
Creativity & Design = 1174
Communications & Media = 2974+
Learning & Education = 1235
Change & Transformation = 2272
Going through that list, the largest target groups are tech & software, sales & account management, and marketing & digital.
And funnily, when adding founders to that list, that I like it.
Founders are a group of people, I would love to support and know well. I know account manager very well, as I worked in that job plus I have a good understanding of marketing and digital.
But before we make our final decision, let’s check for easy to target groups I know through other networks and groups.
Networks & Communities
Besides Linkedin, I am part of several networks.
Women of SaaS, Women in Sales, Women in Customer Success, MentorMe, Pavilion for Sales & Customer Success, Parlor Social Group, University Alumni, Entrepreneurship Centers, Harvard Business School Online and so on. Ex-Toastmasters and co.
These networks are all great, but for me, none of them sticks out. I always wanted to support women somehow, but love working with men and diverse groups, so they can support me well if I pick especially the founder and account management groups.
Just Around the Corner
And for me, then I have all these people around the corner. Living in New York has the benefit of being able to go out and enjoying conversations directly and in persona.
I have been at meetups in the AI & Tech sector, for engineers and programmers, AI specialists and developers. And I love it. Do i understand them? Only when they are playing with tech and wanna build it and are looking for people with domain expertise - like Customer Success and Sales.
Additionally, I have been at several meetups for founders and people who try to break into tech. I have spoken to many founders and there are kind of next doors.
And I have been to many social and general professional meetups. People trying to connect more, find partners, men struggle to let go of their past relationships and are in grief, people trying to get a better overview of to which meetup to go to and building oppprtunities out of them strategically. I feel their is a great target group to test various ideas with. They are directly accessible each day.
Then there are shop owners, restaurant and bar owners. But I am not sure how well I know them.
And then there are dog owners. And many more people on the streets. Many people working in FinTech, AdTech and Fashion apparently.
Friends & Family
And then of course there are friends and family. They are not related to one specific topic, but are always there to support me! 😀
Miscellaneous Groups
On top, I have access to some additional groups.
Couples with young children age 2-6, tennis players, Moms looking for work again after they had their first children, people wanting to start their business, but don’t for various reasons, freelancers, female freelancers, freelancers in the Customer Success space, and so on.
And what are now my key target groups?
Given all there is, for now, I decided to go with these 3 target personas:
Founders - especially tech founders in the SaaS / digital product space
People in New York - especially those wanting to connect, do sales, find relationships
Account Managers
There may be some more though, as I have 2-3 other frustrations I already identified and will test too for adjacent target groups, but we’ll see.
These are specifically:
Compliance Manager in a Banking environment
Dog Owners
High-Level Executives
Companies Looking for Digital Transformation Solutions in Germany
Still, the main 3 target groups will be:
Founders and wannabe founders
New Yorkers looking to connect and sell
Account Managers
And if you wonder how I searched in Linkedin for two words specifically, then search for them in “{your words}”. Then you get more specific results.
Have you already thought about your target groups? Which are they?
Pick them now, before you close this article!
Go back to get some inspiration. And remember, the more comprehensive brainstorming may serve you well later, as you can start to connect them.
Maybe, for my analysis, I will develop a tool for New York - based Account Managers, who feel frustrated about finding Leads on Linkedin to better find them through events in town for which I connect them to. Wo knows. In that way I can combine target groups, make it more specific and have an even more specific target group to conquer, which is also easy to reach. :)
Take that in mind when you do your analysis!
And now, go get it done, so we can move on to the next chapter and challenge of the book! 😀