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Minimum Viable Offer Slider

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About This MicroSim

Jordan's full imagined mobile dog-grooming business has eight features. A minimum viable offer keeps only the ones the offer cannot work without. This MicroSim puts all eight on one checklist and sets the offer's scope with a single slider, from 0 (the bare minimum) to 100 (the full imagined business).

Each feature has a scope threshold. When the slider is at or above a feature's threshold, the feature is checked and in the offer. Below it, the feature fades to gray.

Feature Joins the offer at scope
Basic wash and brush-out 0 (core)
At the customer's home 0 (core)
Text-message booking 10
Nail trim add-on 30
Multiple dog breeds/sizes supported 40
Online booking calendar 55
Flea/tick treatment option 65
Branded van and uniform 85

Two features never leave: the wash and brush-out, and the visit to the customer's home. Take either one away and there is no mobile grooming offer left to test, so they are the essential core. The other six are removable add-ons.

The panel names the tier the current scope falls in:

  • Minimum Viable Offer (0-25): just enough to test the core problem
  • Initial Offer (26-50): still testable, but every add-on is one more assumption
  • Established Offering (51-100): the full imagined business, not a first test

A three-zone meter marks where the scope sits. On wider screens the panel also states Jordan's offer in one sentence, with a word count. The sentence grows from 8 words at the core to 32 words at full scope, so you can see each feature cost the offer some clarity.

The slider starts at 15: a wash and brush-out at the customer's home, booked by text. That is Jordan's actual initial offer from the chapter.

On a phone-width screen the panel stacks above the checklist and the one-sentence offer is hidden.

How to Use

  1. Read the checklist at the starting scope of 15. The three checked features are Jordan's actual initial offer.
  2. Click Reset to 0. Only the two core features remain. Decide whether either one could be cut.
  3. Drag the Offer Scope slider to the right. Watch each add-on join the offer at its threshold, and note where the tier changes at 26 and 51.
  4. On a wide screen, compare the one-sentence offer at 15 with the one at 100.
  5. After you click the slider, the left and right arrow keys move it one step at a time.

Iframe Embed Code

You can add this MicroSim to any web page by adding this to your HTML:

<iframe src="https://dmccreary.github.io/eight-hour-entrepreneur/sims/minimum-viable-offer-slider/main.html"
        height="500px"
        width="100%"
        scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Audience

Adult early-stage entrepreneurs and aspiring founders in a live virtual cohort.

Learning Objective

Participants will apply the concept of a minimum viable offer to Jordan's draft business idea by adjusting the offer's scope and identifying which features are essential to the core offering and which are removable.

Bloom Level: Apply (L3). Bloom Verb: apply.

Duration

10-15 minutes

Prerequisites

  • Chapter 5: Defining the Real Problem
  • Chapter 6 reading through "Keeping the First Offer Small"

Activities

  1. Find the core (3 min): The facilitator shares the screen and clicks Reset to 0. Participants type in the chat why neither remaining feature can be removed without breaking the offer.
  2. Defend or cut (5 min): In breakout pairs, one partner picks an add-on and argues it belongs in Jordan's first offer. The other asks, "Would the first customer miss it?" Pairs agree on a scope value and report it back with the matching one-sentence offer.
  3. Slide your own offer (5 min): Each participant lists six to eight features of their own draft business idea, gives each one a scope threshold from 0 to 100, and marks the features at threshold 0. They then write their minimum viable offer in one sentence of 15 words or fewer.

Assessment

  • Can the participant name Jordan's two core features and explain why each is essential?
  • Given a scope value such as 45, can the participant predict which features are in the offer and which tier it falls in before moving the slider?
  • Can the participant explain why a branded van belongs in an established offering but not in a first test?
  • Does the participant's own minimum viable offer contain only features the offer cannot work without?

References

  1. Minimum viable product - Wikipedia - The smallest version of a product that can test a business hypothesis with real customers, the product-development idea behind a minimum viable offer.
  2. Lean startup - Wikipedia - The build-measure-learn loop that treats each offer as an experiment to be tested and refined.
  3. Scope creep - Wikipedia - How a project's scope grows one reasonable-sounding addition at a time, the pressure this slider makes visible.
  4. MoSCoW method - Wikipedia - A prioritization technique that sorts features into must have, should have, could have, and won't have, a close cousin of core versus add-on.
  5. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries (2011) - The book that popularized the minimum viable product and validated learning for early-stage founders.