Create a Successful Startup With a Minimum Viable Audience
“A startup is a “temporary organization searching for a repeatable and scalable business model”-a structured search process maximizes your chances of success.” -Steve Blank
Sounds oft-repeated definition of a Startup in WITS Zen! It is.
Brian Clark says:
We started first by building an audience, and that’s how we found our scalable business model and became a “real” company.
Serving that audience with valuable free content revealed loads of useful insight into the problems and desires not currently met in the broader market.
Enough, in fact, for us to make our MVPs more “viable” from the start than we would have been able to otherwise. This led to better initial sales momentum, higher customer satisfaction, and ultimately more profit.
Using this process, we’ve developed six distinct lines of business (so far), and have never created a product that’s failed. This is why I advocate you start first with a minimum viable audience.
You have a MVA when:
- You’re receiving enough feedback from comments, emails, social networks, and social media news sites in order to adapt and evolve your content to better serve the audience.
- You’re growing your audience organically thanks to social media sharing by existing audience members and earned media; and
- You’re gaining enough insight into what the audience needs to solve their problems or satisfy their desires beyond the free education you’re providing.
Adapted from “5 Ways a Minimum Viable Audience Helps You Create a Successful Startup”, by Brian Clark in Entreproducer.
