Chad said that I need to keep iterating till I find the proper MVP which will get users to pay me for the product. But while trying to come up with the MVP, should each individual feature be well designed, implemented or should this just be a high-fidelity mock up or maybe low-fidelity mock ups but without much thought to the designs but with development done?
I think you can’t get the users excited enough just by showing mock ups.
The answer probably depends on what you are trying to do.
If you are trying to do some market validation and research and prove whether the idea even makes sense to pursue in the first place, doing well-designed but barely or not-even implement pages powering them makes sense. You can use analytics packages to find out how people reacted to the pages/ideas/pricing/etc.
If you are already into “build this” mode, then I think it’s important to build something which does look good and polished and does also work … but to build it one feature at a time, instead of trying to do the whole thing all at once.
The day you wake up and think “I’m proud of this” instead of “This is still embarrassing” is the day you should launch.
I did my validations long back when I was in college. And since this was a very complex project it took my 5 years to get to this stage but creating the first feature was the hardest thing. But I am sure once the first feature is launched I can iterate fast and add many more features on it.
So the basic question is should I first focus only on the first feature and make sure it reaches out to atleast a group of people even before trying to add many more features for making it loved by everyone.
And I think “I’m really really proud of this” from a developer point of view but I am not sure where and how to create a business model out of this from the entrepreneur point of things.
Yes - I’d say build the first (and most valuable) feature as well as you or you and your team can, and then launch it.
“Launch it” might mean only friends and family, or it might mean a trusted business/partner you have, the whole internet, etc.
Then, listen to what they say about the product, and decide if you agree or not.
In my case my “Launch it” will be probably for all the students present in a college and then move up from there.
But in this case should I make this feature be tested by many more students from different colleges or should I then focus on adding features just to make sure students of that college atleast get all the features. And then to find a business model based on from that college and its students and once that is found I can take this to other colleges.
I would prove that it’s valuable to the first group of students at one college first.
Once you think that’s true (and ideally this means they’re paying you!), expand to more schools.