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Part of A minimum viable offer cuts the product, never the promise
Minimum viable offers questions in four rounds
Minimum viable offers questions fall into four rounds: what you can answer alone, what buyers decide, what delivery reveals, and what later sales show.
Questions about a first offer sort themselves by who can answer them. Some you answer alone, at a desk, in an hour. Some only a buyer can answer, and only when a price is in front of them. Some only delivery answers. And a few are only answerable by the tenth customer.
Asking a question of the wrong source is how a first offer takes three months and settles nothing. So they are grouped by who holds the answer, with what a good answer looks like.
What to take away
- Four questions can be answered at a desk today, and most offers ship without answering them.
- No question about willingness to pay has an answer until somebody has been able to refuse.
- The questions about delivery are the ones founders defer, and they are the ones that decide whether the offer is a business.
Round one: what you answer alone
What exactly does the customer have, after, that they did not have before? A useful answer is a noun and a verb: a filed return, a reconciled ledger, a scheduled week. An answer about capability or empowerment means the promise is not written yet.
Round one: answer alone
- What does the customer have after?
- Smallest version that still delivers it
- What am I cutting, what is protected?
- What is my floor?
What is the smallest version that still delivers that?
What am I cutting, and what am I not allowed to cut?
What is my floor?
If any of these four cannot be answered in an hour, the offer is not ready to be shown, and no amount of customer conversation will fix that.
Round two: what only a buyer can answer
None of these has an answer until a real number sits in front of a person who can say no.
Round two: buyer answers
- Will they commit at this price?
- What do they compare it to?
- Who actually decides?
- What kind of no is it?
Will they commit at this price?
What do they compare it to?
Who actually decides?
What kind of no is it?
Score these on refusals rather than acceptances. An offer nobody has refused has not been priced, whatever the response has been, and getting a refusal cheaply is the whole argument of pricing validation.
Round three: what delivery answers
These get deferred and they are the ones that decide whether you have a business or a favor.
Round three: delivery answers
- How long did the first one take?
- What did the customer have to do?
- Which part did they value?
- What broke, would it break at ten?
- Can I state a delivery window I can hold?
Can I state a delivery window I can hold? If money changes hands before delivery, that window is an obligation rather than an estimate: the order and shipment rule requires notice and a prompt refund when you cannot meet it.
Round four: what only the tenth sale answers
| Question | Why it needs ten | What a bad answer looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Do the customers resemble each other? | One or two can resemble anything | Ten people with nothing in common except that they said yes |
| Does the delivery hold at volume? | The ceiling is invisible below it | Every delivery still requiring you personally to improvise |
| Is the price stable? | Two acceptances are not a shape | Every sale closed at a different number for reasons you cannot state |
| Do they come back? | Needs a full cycle to pass | Renewal never yet tested because nobody has reached it |
| Can the route be repeated? | Warm contacts run out around here | All ten traceable to people you already knew |
The last row is the one that ends most first offers, and it is not a product finding. Ten sales from your own network is a real achievement and tells you nothing about strangers. Designing the offer for ten rather than for one is the argument in minimum viable offers, and it is what makes this round answerable at all.
What only the tenth sale answers
Question
- Do customers resemble each other?
- One or two resemble anything
- Does delivery hold at volume?
- Ceiling invisible below it
- Is the price stable?
- Two acceptances are not a shape
- Do they come back?
- Needs a full cycle
- Can the route be repeated?
- Warm contacts run out
Why it needs ten
- Do customers resemble each other?
- Ten with nothing in common
- Does delivery hold at volume?
- Every delivery needs you
- Is the price stable?
- Every sale a different number
- Do they come back?
- Renewal never tested
- Can the route be repeated?
- All ten from people you knew
Bad answer
- Do customers resemble each other?
- Does delivery hold at volume?
- Is the price stable?
- Do they come back?
- Can the route be repeated?
Questions that sound useful and are not
Would you buy this? A free prediction from someone with nothing at stake. Ask what they did last time the problem occurred.
Useful-sounding questions to avoid
Don't ask
- Would you buy this?
- What did they do last time?
- Does this seem reasonably priced?
- Attach price to a decision
- What features are missing?
- What stopped them completing?
- Do you like it?
- Treat compliments as a warning
- Should I build the full version?
- The evidence answers it
Ask instead
- Would you buy this?
- Does this seem reasonably priced?
- What features are missing?
- Do you like it?
- Should I build the full version?
Does this seem reasonably priced?
What features are missing?
Do you like it?
Should I build the full version?
Using the four rounds as a gate
Do not ship until round one is written. Do not conclude anything about demand until round two has produced refusals as well as acceptances. Do not scale until round three has run at least three times. And do not describe anything as validated until round four has been attempted with people you did not already know.
Four rounds as a gate
- Round one written before shipping
- Round two refusals and acceptances
- Round three run at least three times
- Round four attempted with strangers
Each round is cheap and each is skipped for the same reason: the next round is more exciting than the one you are in. If the offer needs cutting between rounds, use the customer promise and delivery limits you identified in round one to decide what stays.
Common questions
How long should the four rounds take?
Round one is an hour. Round two is as long as it takes to get in front of enough people to collect refusals. Round three runs alongside it. Round four has no fixed duration; it depends on reaching ten sales to people you did not already know.
What if I cannot get ten sales?
That is round four answering, honestly. The next question is whether the obstacle is reach or the offer, and those are separable: count how many qualified people actually saw a price.
Can I run rounds two and three at once?
Yes, and you should, because delivering to the first buyers is how round three gets its material. What you cannot do is conclude round two from customers who have not yet been delivered to.
Does the offer need to be the final product?
No. It needs to be a real transaction for a real promise you can keep. Everything else about it is provisional.
