#67: How to Create a Minimum Viable Product Development Process with Andrew Goldner of GrowthX

Launching a tech product can be a very rocky road for a startup. Technical issues are common, and user feedback during the early days of rollout is often focused around bugs and glitches rather than the product’s core features. This makes it difficult for teams to hone in on what’s working and what isn’t, which can delay the process of reaching product-market fit. And this all wastes a startup’s most valuable resource: time. For these reasons, our guests on today’s episode of the Igniting Statups podcast believe the traditional process for developing a minimum viable product (MVP) is broken. The first is Andrew Goldner, an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and founder of GrowthX, an investment firm that helps organizations commercialize innovation through capital, talent and know-how. Joining him is Sashank Purighalla, CEO of BOS Framework, which provides a pre-built suite of APIs, plugins and UI components for startups that are building software applications. According to Andrew and Sashank, the MVP process shouldn’t just be about building software—it should be about evaluating the market and creating a product that solves a real need. By leveraging in-depth research and tools that jump-start technical development, startup teams can discover what their market needs and spend their valuable resources building that solution. That means reaching product-market fit, revenue and profitability sooner, which could make the difference between startup growth and startup death. In this episode with Andrew Goldner and Sashank Purighalla, you’ll learn: -- Why a successful product has to do more than sound interesting. -- Reasons why venture funding might be the wrong choice for a startup. -- How GrowthX is fueling venture capital growth outside Silicon Valley. -- The big problem with the traditional MVP process. -- The benefit of market acceleration programs for discovering market truth. -- How a pre-built tech framework can help companies get to product-market fit. -- Andrew’s and Sashank’s greatest hopes for entrepreneurship in middle America. If you like this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes. You can also follow us on Soundcloud or Stitcher. We have an incredible lineup of interviews we’ll be releasing every Tuesday here on the Powderkeg Podcast. Check it out at powderkeg.com/itunes.