#10: Stears, the Death of MVPs & Bimonthly Digest.

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Oct 12, 2022

Are MVPs dead?

One of the first things I learnt about product development was the lean startup methodology. The product development methodology emphasized the importance of having a Minimum Viable Product [MVP] and quickly getting your MVP to your users.

Eric Ries, the author of the renowned Lean Startup book, defined an MVP as "that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort."

It sounds abstract, but a simple way to rephrase it is: "an MVP is the lowest version of a product or service that allows you to learn the most about your customers." The idea behind MVP is to leverage iteration and customer learnings as the pathway to growing your product.

The lean startup methodology is popular and has been for years, but it is heavily flawed. This article by Daniel Kyne summarized the flaws well. The first is that Ries focuses on product analytics as the source of "validated customer learnings." Analytics only tells a part of the story; it tells you the what and not the why. Solely relying on it can be detrimental to the product, but I digress.

The consensus amongst most schools of thought, including YCombinator, is that MVPs are scrappy, quick to build and have limited functionality. Yet, in the African product ecosystem, especially in fintech, people seem to be building and releasing fully functional and near-perfect products that took 6-12 months to build.

Which begs the question; "Are MVPs dead?"

Are people still building MVPs? Is it still worth it to go the MVP route? Do MVPs work in some spaces and fail in others? It sounds a little dramatic, but these are critical questions.

I don't think MVPs are dead. I think it is still a viable way to build products. The truth is that MVP is a process.

An MVP is a process that you repeat over and over again: Identify your riskiest assumption, find the smallest possible experiment to test that assumption, and use the results of the experiment to course correct. - Jim Berkman

The challenge with the African Fintech space is that it is saturated. People already have products they use and rely on, so newcomers need to come prepared. New entrants feel immense pressure to build and release near-perfect products if they want to come close to existing products in the market.

It makes sense, right? But the problem with doing this is that it is expensive and risky. Expensive because it requires time, money and talent. All of which are scarce. And risky because what happens if you make a mistake, focus on the wrong things, or build for the wrong people? What happens then?

What makes this even scarier is that most African startups don't have a strong user research culture. So what happens if you build what you think are the basic features users have access to, and you find out that that's not what they want? What happens if you start struggling to acquire customers and have no runway? The inevitable end would be death.

There is a reason DoorDash, Stripe and Dropbox built MVPs. It's important in helping you derisk your idea/product. I think people are no longer taking the MVP approach because of what Michael Siebel calls the FOMO economy. The idea that people are building products and getting rich, and you're missing out because you're moving too slow.

But when has FOMO ever been good for something?

The good news is that people are still building MVPs. I know people building that started with MVPs and are making progress. I know a couple of recently launched products are taking this methodology and adding things as they go. What I can't speak to is how they are learning, i.e. if they are using a mix of quantitative and qualitative research methods.

At the end of the day, what humans [including users] understand is value. If you're able to create something of value to people that solve their problems at a reasonable price and communicate the value to them, they will come.

So while Eric Ries' Lean Startup methodology is flawed, I think the idea behind it is an excellent system for building products people will love. People have moved to talking about Minimum Valuable Products and Minimum Lovable Products to append the flaws. But it's all semantics, in my opinion. I really love how Daniel Kyne put it in his modification of the methodology:

The best Minimum Viable Products are experiments that test whether a set of unique product attributes can successfully solve a high-priority problem and deliver the value expected by a specific customer segment in the most resource-efficient manner possible.

A better approach to building an MVP would:

clarify what founders need to understand about customers before building anything,
help founders identify the minimum amount of product that would need to be built to validate their idea, and
very specifically outline what features should be excluded entirely from the MVP.

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Do you think MVPs are dead?

Product Feature of the Week

This week’s product feature is one I’ve been using for about a year now and absolutely love. So let’s get to it.

Profile

Name: Stears
Website: https://www.stears.co/
Countries Served: Worldwide
Product Space: Media [Data & Intelligence]
Price: 4,000NGN or $10 a month.
Founders: Preston Ideh [CEO], Michael Famoroti, Foluso Ogunlana, Abdul Abdulrahim.
Funding Stage: Seed
Year Founded: 2017
News Highlights: TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Aspen Capital
Open Roles: Design Lead, Senior Engineer, People Operations Associate & much more.

In their own words:

Mission: Stears' mission is to become the world's most trusted source of African data, insight and data collection tools for businesses, financial and policy professionals.

Stears is the answer company for Africa. They leverage technology to provide subscription-based data and insight to global businesses and professionals. Their data helps clients understand the disruptive trends, transformations and technologies shaping Africa, the world's fastest-growing continent.

Stears uses macroeconomic and financial data, analytical models, and data collection tools to answer research questions on the future of Africa. They provide historical and real-time data, indices, reports, whitepapers and briefs to inform investment and policy decisions. Their intelligence assesses how economics, public policy, disruptive technologies and regulation affect the digital and real economy, including financial services & fintech, digital commerce, transport, energy and agriculture.

Stears also produces data-driven insight & analysis on African economies, emphasising Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy. The promise is to provide original, analytical, well-written stories that make sense of African economies. Their goal is to provide insight for transparent, rigorous and coherent thinking. They believe in permitting all inoffensive ideologies to inform readers. They also advocate the explicit revelation of the underlying assumptions, theories and context used in all analyses, ensuring that readers understand the assumptions guiding their insight.

Vibe Check:

I’ve been a Stears user since early 2021, and it’s been such a great experience. It’s quite affordable, and I’ve gotten value for my money. The quality of their posts was what got me hooked.

I started as a free user, and the quality of the free articles made me seek the paid plan. The quality of posts has been exceptional. I particularly love the visualizations and how engaging the posts are. Reading about the economy, finance and governance can be a bit boring, but Stears has found a way to make it enjoyable.

I love the weekly summary emails they send. It’s so nice when I miss the daily emails or haven’t had time to read the posts. I think it’s how they write about the most boring things in the most humane way. Most of their articles are written in a conversational way, I think that’s what makes it so engaging.

I love how clean and modern their site and brand are. It’s clean, balanced and unambiguous. I also love that they have a writer’s network, and it’s public. It’s a seemingly inconsequential thing, but I appreciate the transparency.

I scheduled this post weeks ago but had to update it to include Stears’ $3.3 million seed funding announcement with Serena Ventures as one of their investors. This was exciting news for me because I genuinely love the product and what they do. I can’t wait to see where they go with it!

What do you think about Stears?

Product Digest

Here’s a digest of the ten products we’ve featured so far:

#1: Mainstack [No-Code]
Mainstack is a no-code tool which allows you to create a customizable web page that harmonizes all you want to share with your audience/followers.
#2: Vzy [No-Code]
Vzy is a no-code tool that helps people create professional, beautiful, easy-to-use websites, sell digital products, collect payments, manage customer contacts and understand their business analytics.
#3: Emergency Response Africa [Health-Tech]
Emergency Response Africa is a healthcare technology company that is changing how medical emergencies are managed in Africa, beginning in Nigeria.
#4: Famasi [Health-Tech]
Famasi is a medication management service provider. They pay attention to clients with chronic health conditions and ensure they never run out of medications. They also deliver a broad range of drugs, vitamins, and over-the-counter medications (OTC).
#5: Eccobell [Internet of Things]
Eccobell is on a mission to build an ecosystem of on-demand applications using contactless technology to innovate how people access, communicate and interact with each other, unrestricted by device.
#6: Foodlama [Food-Tech]
FoodLama is a browser extension that helps you easily find food that matches your preferences when shopping for groceries online.
#7: Spoutly [Fin-Tech]
Sproutly teaches teens how to make smart financial decisions by developing a learning financial environment for teens to explore the world of financial ownership.
#8: SmallSmall [Prop-Tech]
SmallSmall is a property technology company created to connect people to better living solutions that is seamless and efficient.
#9: Accrue [Fin-Tech]
Accrue is for beginners to investing who want guidance, ease, convenience, minimal risk, and decent returns. Accrue is a long-term wealth-building app built for beginners to invest.
#10: Stears [Media: Data & Intelligence]
Stears is on a mission to become the world's most trusted source of African data, insight and data collection tools for businesses, financial and policy professionals.

We have an amazing lineup for the next ten issues. I can’t wait! If you’d like us to feature a product, please send it our way.

On an unrelated note:

Here are three of my favourite things I read and watched in the past week:

Bowing out:

That’s it for this week, folks! I hope you found it enlightening.

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I hope the rest of your week goes great! See ya next week!

Yours in Product Discovery,

Dumss.

rapport by vizible.

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