Forget MVPs: Why Your B2B Startup Needs a Minimal Sellable Product Instead 💰

Let me tell you about a conversation I had recently with a founder building a demand generation platform. Like most founders, he was heads-down developing an MVP, all with the singular goal of attracting VC attention. But halfway through our chat, something clicked. He realized his "minimal viable product" and what customers would actually pay for were two entirely different things.

The MVP Trap

While MVPs might work for consumer apps (think early versions of Instagram or Twitter), they're often a death trap for B2B startups. Why? Because they optimize for the wrong audience.

The typical MVP playbook pushes you to focus on the frontend and visual elements that make your vision easy to grasp in investor meetings. So, you focus on parts of your product that might not help you make money right away.

Enter the MSP (Minimal Sellable Product)

Credit to Craig Major from the Toronto Starts podcast for giving me the perfect term for what I've been preaching. The Minimal Sellable Product (MSP) flips the MVP model on its head:

The MotivBase Example

At MotivBase, if we'd followed the MVP playbook, we would have spent months building a beautiful dashboard with all the bells and whistles to impress VCs. Instead, we built an MSP that:

• Focused heavily on the backend analytics engine

• Had a basic interface that wasn't pretty but worked

• Required manual intervention from our team for some processes

The result? Over $1M in revenue our first year and profitability from day 90. While our competitors were perfecting their demo environments, we were banking real customer revenue.

What Makes an MSP Different?

1. Revenue First

   • MVPs optimize for the next funding round

   • MSPs optimize for the next customer payment

2. Value Delivery > Feature Completeness

   • MVPs showcase future possibilities

   • MSPs solve immediate problems

3. Backend Over Frontend

   • MVPs prioritize what looks good

   • MSPs prioritize what generates value, even if it's ugly

4. Human Support Welcome

   • MVPs try to demonstrate automation

   • MSPs are all about rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty with some good old-fashioned manual processes

How to Build an MSP

1. Start With Revenue in Mind

   • What's the smallest piece of your solution customers would pay for today?

   • Which features directly translate to customer value?

2. Embrace Manual Processes

   • What can you do by hand while you build automation?

   • Where can human expertise fill temporary gaps without impacting the customer’s outcome?

3. Focus on Core Value

   • What's the one thing that solves your customer's hair-on-fire problem?

   • Build that. Only that. Ship it.

The Real Secret

Customers, especially in B2B, don't care about your perfect product. They care about solving their problems. If you can deliver value, they'll happily come along for the ride as you build out your broader vision.

Does your interface look like it was designed in 1999? Doesn't matter if you're delivering insights that save them millions.

Is your process partially manual behind the scenes? They don't care if the output helps them beat their competition.

The Hard Truth

Every hour you spend perfecting features for an MVP demo is an hour you're not generating revenue. Every month you spend fundraising is a month your competition might be selling their MSP.

The question isn't "Is this viable?" but rather "Will someone pay for this?"

P.S. Still building an MVP? Ask yourself: Are you building it for investors or customers? Because I guarantee they're not looking for the same things.

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