Startups prioritize speed, not perfection

Dear Readers,

We’ve been busy running a few experiments or sprints, as we call them internally. One of these projects is to bring you more data-driven insights using graphic design, and our first visual story is based on our State of Asian Startups 2020 report. It’s finally up, and you can check it out within the links.

When we were setting up our sprints, one of the things we discussed was what constitutes a minimum viable product (MVP). We came up with a few definitions: Some argued that an MVP should take as little time as possible to ship, while some believed that we should focus more on “viable,” not “minimum.”

I think both are equally right, and the definition really depends on the situation. Some MVPs may take days – if not a few weeks – to ship, so there’s no running from it. On the other hand, an MVP that’s built sloppily may not do justice to your user base, especially when they’re paying for your product. And as the team runs the sprint, the process often goes into stops and starts, which could frustrate team members.

Every sprint is unique and requires a different approach. But things can get clearer if we understand what’s top priority. Taking this first visual story as an example, this was the situation we were in:

• We wanted to test if users will subscribe to visual stories. Without divulging too many details (and boring you), our internal data and research suggested we give this a try.
• We were optimizing for viable, not minimum.
• Our core team was made up of a sprint manager, writer, and a designer.
• The initial process was Write-Design-Publish. What could go wrong, right?

So we worked on the sprint, and here were the friction points we faced:

• The writer had no clear instruction or idea of what the visualization would look like.
• The sprint manager is trained to handle data but isn’t familiar with design matters to help smoothen the process.
• The designer moves pixels around well, but it took a few tries before the data and copy were interwoven into a visual design.

The first iteration looked OK, but it didn’t reflect the story. It took two iterations before we got it and the final work was published. We’re proud of how we put differences aside, played to our individual strengths, and focused on shipping. In our opinion, it’s a quality MVP, though not perfect.

We needed four days to complete the entire process – from copywriting, design, and publishing. Our initial attempts were clearly inadequate, but we wouldn’t have known that if we didn’t just jump in and give it a go. We could have planned longer and set up a “gold standard process” before we shipped. But that’s not in our DNA: Speed is one of TIA’s competitive advantages and we’re leveraging it.

I hope you picked up something useful or helpful from this. See you next week!

You can find my last commentary via this link: “Why a merger between Grab and Gojek makes sense”. You can also read all my commentaries here.

P.S. Is there anything that you’d like us to do more of or try? Please let me know. 🙏