Silicon Valley Product Group

Thanks for signing up! We're definitely going to be making a video for the landing page.

We have a slightly different take on things we think (even though there's a certain amount of table stakes features you need to build to get people to use it at all, we've found).

First off, unlike most of our competitors, we don't push people to break down initiatives into little bit sized tasks, giving each one an assignee. Instead we take a more collaborative attitude. We think work items should be the "right size" [0] which is much bigger than a single task - instead it's some value delivered end to end to your users. As a result, our work items are rich documents and they'll only get richer and more collaborative. We see that our users write a lot, hash out things together, upload designs, etc. And they're only getting more rich and more collaborative.

Secondly, we have a lot of exciting things coming with our integrations. Our focus is really on cutting down the noise coming from a lot of the tools teams use and to link assets/activities in those tools directly to work items in Kitemaker, so you can get the info you need when you need it. Our users like to complain about tools like Figma being awful for discussions and tools like GitHub producing too many noisy emails. We want to fix that. The Slack, Discord, GitHub and Slack integrations are already pretty powerful.

Thirdly, it's fast. Super super fast with hot keys for everything. We're really inspired by Superhuman and our…

> I'm quite surprised by this, since to me there's little to disagree about. A "minimum viable product" seems like a very simple description to me.

I've found a lot of confusion about the term. Just a few of the many examples I've read: https://hbr.org/2013/09/building-a-minimum-viable-prod/, http://tynerblain.com/blog/2012/09/11/why-do-products-fail-incomplete-solutions/, http://paulkortman.com/2012/11/21/the-problem-with-a-lean-startup-the-minimum-viable-product/, https://medium.com/@maxdunn/when-the-minimum-viable-product-is-not-enough-308d8f009b13#.w8u3gudqg, http://www.romanpichler.com/blog/minimum-viable-product-and-minimal-marketable-product/, http://www.svpg.com/minimum-viable-product, http://andrewchen.co/minimum-desirable-product/, http://www.startupblender.com/minimum-viable-product-vs-minimum-delightful-product/, http://blog.invisionapp.com/minimum-viable-product-mutants/, https://validately.com/leancustomerresearch/death-minimal-viable-product/.

Note how many of the articles above try to redefine the phrase to reduce confusion, such as "Minimum Delightful Product" or "Minimum Marketable Product." There is confusion about every part of MVP: what "minimum" means, what "viable" means, and what "product" means.

> If it's not the smallest viable product then how is it a minimum viable product? If it's not a viable product, again, it's not an MVP.

How do you do know if it's "smallest" or "viable"? Walk me through your process.

> If people are going to use the…

> You seem to be focused on proving that great people exist, which is obviously true

I would not know it from the way you talk!

> I'm more concerned with the average case because that reflects how an organization should be structured

Average in an org is very different from population average. The average professional is bad at their job. The average employee in a company can be pretty good.

My perception is that maybe only 20% of people are somewhat competent at their job, and maybe only 1-5% are very competent. Assuming managers are default bad is correct, but also useless because people in every role are default bad.

If you are competent and you care, the solution is to find a company which values that.

Problems that companies in the bottom 80% deal and the associated problems they deal with are utterly uninteresting, because it's like talking about how water is wet.

Yes, hiring people who are incompetent creates issues. Especially in managerial roles. Yes, hiring good people is difficult and creates another problem for the org. Most companies never get past dealing with these problems and they don't really give a shit about them, which is why it's so boring to discuss.

For an individual, the first step towards having a better manager is joining a better company. After you've done that is when the conversation becomes more interesting, because even at better companies not all managers are good or great.

---

To me this whole thing very much sounds like the…

There are exceptions to ever rule, but generally patents are (1) not incredibly important in software (2) solving a question that's secondary.

The biggest risk to building a startup isn't "can I build this thing" (feasibility risk). It's "will people even care if I build this thing" (value risk) then "can I do it in a way people use" (usability risk). Patents help solve business risk, but that's generally considered to be the 4th (and last) of the risks.

There are exceptions where patents do need to be filed first or the business viability dies. However, I generally assume that if you've addressed value, usability, and feasibility risks to create something truly meaningful, your competitors will find a work around to deliver the same value, usability, and feasibility without infringing on your patent. Thus, patents, are nothing but a minor inconvenience. In some cases, the public filing of a patent, can give your competitors a leg up on competing with you.

https://www.svpg.com/four-big-risks/

Initial Operating Capability (IOC) is notably different from how many people think of Minimum Viable Product (MVP). From the Wikipedia page on IOC:

> "In general, attained when some units and/or organizations in the force structure scheduled to receive a system have received it and have the ability to employ and maintain it."

Contrast with these quotes from [1]:

> I have long defined minimum viable product as the smallest possible product that has three critical characteristics: people choose to use it or buy it; people can figure out how to use it; and we can deliver it when we need it with the resources available – also known as valuable, usable and feasible.

> I love the concept popularized by Eric Ries of the smallest possible experiment to test a specific hypothesis, but I refer to that that as an “MVP Test” so that people don’t confuse an experiment with a product.

[1]: https://www.svpg.com/minimum-viable-product/

I do not know of a coach, but two resources I would encourage you to check out are:

1. Silicon Valley Product Group Blog: They are thought leaders in the field and have a very strong opinion on how product management SHOULD be done. I do not agree with everything they recommend, but they are a great resource to help get up to speed with product management.
https://www.svpg.com/articles/

2. Northwestern Kellogg Product Strategy Online Course: While expensive, this is an excellent and rigorous resource for learning product management basics.
https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/executive-education/individual-programs/online-programs/prodstrat.aspx#upcomingsessions

I know this isn't quite what you were looking for, but I hope these are some useful resources to get you started. I'd love to hear what you ultimately end up doing and whether you found it valuable or not.