How is it possible to launch very basic service?

Discussions
#1

Hello everyone,

as many others I heard about MVP and how it’s important to launch the product as soon as possible, at least to have a feedback. What I really don’t understand is in some situations it’s very hard to launch a minimal product. For example, I want to run a SAAS, and a Chrome extension is a part of it. So my MVP would be basic, minimal extension with a lot of bugs. Okay, I’m not going to charge users for it but users will rate it and rate can’t be high because of the state of this extension. They will write “it’s very basic, so 3 of 5”, or “it’s glitchy, so 2 of 5” etc. Of course I will improve it, add more features but it will be very hard to improve the reputation and rating.

What would you suggest?

Thanks

#2

An MVP does not mean you can release software with bugs. It means you should release software with minimal features, so that you can get it out there in the hands of consumers as soon as possible.

As someone who runs a chrome extension with 200K users, I suggest you get the chrome extension out there as soon as you can, before you work on the SaaS upsell. (I am assuming you have done enough customer validation on the chrome extension before you start work on it)

Regarding the ratings for the chrome extension - Negative ratings come only from pissing users off. Positive ratings come only from asking users to rate you. So, unless you piss of your users, they won’t all rate you at all. Don’t ask for ratings unless they find enough value from your extension. Even if you do get rated badly initially, overtime as your extension gets adopted widely, and people appreciate it, you will get better ratings and the average will go up.

Here are a few tips I wish someone had given me before I created my first chrome extension -

  • Try and find a way to get the user’s email address. In my extension, every user needs to generate an API key to use it. If users are getting enough value from your extension, they will be happy to hand over their email addresses to you. This is the the preferred way to communicate with your users. (Chrome extensions that do not need an email address have a much tougher time)
  • Manually follow up with the early users, after they have installed your chrome extension and gotten value from it. Find out if they are interested in buying the SaaS. Do this before you write any code for the SaaS.
  • Most chrome extension (and Firefox add-on) users are used to getting the functionality for free. I have found that very few people are willing to pay enough for a chrome extension, even if it gives as much value as a webapp would. Hence my philosophy is to use the chrome extension as a marketing tool for the webapp.
  • People love to write about Chrome extensions. It is therefore far easier to get bloggers to mention your chrome extension than your webapp.
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#3

Two things:

  1. The reality of releasing a product is that you’ll have almost no users, almost no-one rating it, almost no-one finding the bugs, etc. But at least you’ve worked out how to release it, and now you can keep iterating and releasing frequent updates as you gradually do find some users.
  2. Ideally, an “MVP” is not a bug-riddled mess. It should actually be properly tested. What a MVP should be is a minimum product, in that it has only one or two features up to a few at most.
#4

Nice response Akash. Mind sharing your extension?

#5

Sure. Here you go - https://keywordseverywhere.com/

1 Like
#6

Thanks for your advice. Even if my model is slightly different from yours it may work. The point is my extension is just a part of SaaS, not independent piece.

#7

Thanks a lot. In my case even if I put couple of features in the product it still may be very buggish. But I will work to make it better anyway :slight_smile: