What did I learn by building an AI start-up MVP - Part 1
These are the lessons I learned from making an MVP for my AI start-up, Tokai.
Building an MVP is not a one-time process. It is a continuous process of build, measure, and learn. Build fast and learn on the fly. My name is Mark; for the past months, I have been working on developing new AI solutions for researchers, software developers, and learners of the future. Our start-up, Tokai, is working on an intelligent and helpful assistant for your research project, software project, and many more. However, building an MVP is not an easy one-shot process. Instead, it is a constant process of iterative learning to learn from peers, users, and your team. And today, I would like to share some of the lessons learned from this start-up journey.
The number one MVP killer: Perfectionism
It is not hard to imagine that perfectionism is the number one MVP killer. Often, we like to overthink or over-engineer our product. Building an MVP is not a one-shot process but an iterative learning journey with your users and team. Here is the beginning of our product, DragonNote (A similar idea to Tokai today).
And this is what the product available today looks like.
What a big difference! We didn't iterate our product purely from our imagination but built our product first, talked to users, and rethought our product and how we could deliver much better user experiences next time. We did this over and over again.
Lesson learned: Take advantage of existing infrastructure and resources
It might sound cool for a talented technical founder to build everything from zero to one. However, iteration speed is the key to survival in this tech start-up arena. Building quick and learning faster from iteration should be the guiding principle for every start-up founder. Our goal is not to demonstrate how good we are at building deep tech but how we craft our product to meet users' needs and pain points. And here are some infrastructure I recommend for you to get started.
tailus.io, hellotailus.io
Lesson learned: Idea is cheap
It is very easy to fall into the trap that our start-up idea is a secret; no one should learn about my idea until the big day (launch day). But the reality is, however, no one cares! No one cares about your idea. The idea is very cheap unless you can make a product to realize it that solves my problem. Otherwise, it is worth nothing. I learned from this lesson that we should talk to our users and peers about our idea and test our prototype earlier, even before we think it is ready.
A journey that never ends
Building an MVP is a continuous process of learning from the users. Talking to users about your product as early as possible will mitigate your risk of making something no one needs, even if it looks and sounds superb.
Finally, just like making an MVP, our team is still on the path to learning more from you, your needs, and your wishes. Our mission at Tokai is to realize accelerated learning for humans and machines. Suppose you are passionate about learning or urgent to build something cool without reading the documentation for weeks. In that case, we help you accelerate your learning curve for past, present, and future projects.
Suppose you are passionate about learning or urgent to build something cool without reading the documentation for weeks. In that case, Tokai will be your best partner for you to accelerate your learning curve and, most importantly, enjoy the journey.
