Product teams feel incredible pressure to ship their new product, but if it's not in fact a minimally viable product (MVP), marketing shouldn't be afraid to say so. Time to market absolutely matters. Products should swiftly evolve based on customer reactions. Yet it's imperative that the first impression is good enough to warrant a deeper look.
Getting a new service ready for MVP launch
Once I was working on a net new service launch for a major cloud company, you can guess who. There was a big NY customer event upcoming and it seemed like a great venue for a main stage announcement. We wanted to have a "first mover" advantage over competitors. The product team and engineers were pushing hard to get their MVP candidate ready.
Part of my responsibility was to create the product landing page for the company website. We had nailed the problem statements, descriptions of how the product worked, built a slick 1-2-3 steps "how to" diagram, etc. We were ready early and "hot to go" on the launch from the product marketing point of view.
Is your marketing ahead of your service?
Then the inevitable tough choices came. When development is behind schedule, there are really only two choices: slip the schedule or reduce the feature list. With the event as a deadline, they starting cutting back. So I had to keep cutting back the product positioning to match.
We realized we were in trouble when I finally called out, "hey folks, this service now does only 1.5 of the 5 main things it's supposed to do for the customer." Like pulling the Andon cord in a factory, everyone stopped to discuss whether the quality and capabilities were indeed where they needed to be for a successful MVP new product introduction (NPI).
They weren't, but it took me and a senior evangelist to convince everyone that dropping out of the event was the right move. Fast forward sixth months later and we had a keynote-based launch at a much bigger event. While there was an opportunity cost and some bruised feelings, it was the right move for the customer and importantly, also for the service's chances of success.
Don't be afraid to speak up and be the voice of the customer. That first user experience impression is just as important as nailing the messaging. If you're not confident, take the time to get it right!