MVPs

When it comes to the minimum viable product, Rendering Bullets had one ready over the weekend of a hackathon/inventathon. The Universal Serial Blaster (USB) was able to perform the basic jump, shoot, reload, special function, and character movement features for almost any game.

This gave the team an edge whenever pitching the idea for a problem statement to a friend/stranger. Possessing a functioning prototype helped the team capture the attention of potential audiences (Eg. college students) and also gain instant feedback on it, in the form of a suggestion, criticism, and more.

If the team were to have gone through the entire development process and then pitched the product, it would have taken much longer for a prototype/finished version to roll out. Moreover in the absence of funding and support in the absence of the hackathon event, the initial stages of design would have been much harder to pursue.

The assigned video* makes a good point about getting the best, yet most simplistic - the minimum viable - version of your product to achieve an important part of the design phase - customer feedback, preliminary testing, or even idea testing. The team has followed a similar path, but is yet to expand to mass surveys and more advanced stages of testing within the Minimum Viable Product’s life cycle.

The life cycle of a minimum viable product doesn’t have to be less than a day or more than a day, less than a week, or more than a week, it can even last for a year. Currently, funding issues are constraining further prototyping and product development, yet the team is actively gaining insight on the current prototype wherever and whenever it can.

The Minimum Viable product is a concept the team certainly unknowingly adopted, and it has paid off so far.