Episode Summary

On the podcast today, Josh and I discuss the Product Validation Funnel, a term we coined here at CIL. It is a method of building software, a way to discover where clients are in their process and help them to the next part of the funnel.

Product validation is inherent to how we build software, it guides us to help clients make the best decisions not only about their product but about their business. We want to help them (and you!) avoid costly mistakes and build something no one uses. Software should be a perfect solution to the product you’re solving, and YOUR customer should be delighted when they use it. How do you do that? Well, with the Product Validation Funnel, of course.

What else can you tell me about Product Validation?

Why is Using a Lean Startup Methodology Important?5 Ways to Apply Lean StartupWhy We Created a Validation Process – the origin storyWhat is an MVP?There’s a lot more to read, listen to, etc at this link!

Full Transcript

Erin Srebinski: [00:00:18] Today we are talking about Product Validation Funnel. Josh, why don’t you tell us what the Product Validation Funnel is?

Josh Barker: [00:00:25] Absolutely. We developed the Product Validation Funnel because it really is our key differentiator in the marketplace.

And we want to kind of give people that secret sauce, you know, we want to give back and we want to say, this is how you should build software.  These were key learnings from being out in Silicon Valley and working with a ton of smarter people than myself, and being able to take all that information and package it together.

And we created the Product Validation Funnel. So that’s a little bit of the history behind it.  The Product Validation Funnel, what it is  in a simple form, is all products go through this funnel, whether or not you acknowledge it they go through this funnel. So there are a couple of different stages within the funnel.

So if you envision a funnel and at the top of the funnel, the broader side, you’ve got an MVT:  Minimum Viable Tests. And then down the funnel a little further, you’ve got Minimum Viable Product. And then down at the bottom, you have a Minimum Marketable Product. So each of these stages,  all products go through this.

The biggest mistake that companies make when they’re developing products is they go through this funnel too quickly.  They’ll skip over steps. They’ll go down right to the bottom. Normally, that’s the biggest problem, they’ll go right through the funnel to the MMP and they’ll say, what do we need to build?

What we do is encourage people to go and think through it a lot more systematically. Make sure you go from MVT to MVP, to MMP. A lot of abbreviations. The thought is, is when you go from the top,