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What Actually Makes Demos, MVPs and Full-products Different?
Definitions for Demos, MVPs and Full-builds to help you determine which one your startup needs
Word definitions are really, really important. When I ask the barista for my “large cold-brew, no milk and no sugar” each morning, 2-minutes later I’ll have exactly what I asked for. The reason that works isn’t because they are a barista or I am a cafe patron. It’s because both they and I hold the exact same definitions for every word spoken in my order — of which the word-order matters.
Coffee beverages have been around for a long time; tech startups have not. Many of the words that get used in tech to speak about marketing, sales, and product are newly minted. Merriam-Webster doesn’t even have definitions for many of them. Most likely, your customers and colleagues don’t either. For those that do, it’s a Hail Mary to assume that their definition closely mirrors yours.
In my line of work, I speak at length with roughly 10 entrepreneurs every week. They come to my company for help at turning their ideas into working software products. In our meetings, they say a lot of words about their idea. After that, I ask a lot of questions to ensure I understand — as much as possible — what they said. Essentially, I spend a majority of my…
