Why I ditched a working MVP for a Landing Page?

Daniel Stuski
6 replies
Hey Product Hunters 👋 It took me over 1 week to build a working MVP for my AI-powered tool. I was ready to launch it when I realized that OpenAI needs to verify the app before launching it to real users. Instead of waiting for the end of the verification process, I spent a few hours building a landing page that briefly describes the problem I try to solve and a "How it works" section. But why a landing page? A landing page focuses on the problem that the product solves. MVP focuses on the solution to that problem. Often, MVP may or may not actually solve the problem. When building an MVP too early, you might waste time and resources on something that might not work. A landing page, on the other hand, tests whether there’s even a market for the problem you’re solving. A lot of makers think they need to have a product before they can start testing their startup idea. But that’s not true. You can use a landing page to validate your startup idea without spending weeks (or months) building a prototype. Creating a landing page can be incredibly quick and cheap. You can even use no-code tools to create a simple landing page in just a few hours (I coded it myself in Next.js). Once your landing page is live, you can start driving traffic to it through paid ads, social media, or blog posts (like this one). That way you can measure whether people are actually interested in what you’re offering. Just pay attention to things like conversion rate and time on site. Make sure to track where the users come from and how they act. Tools like Google Analytics, Plausible, Hotjar, or Mixpanel might come in handy. If you find that people are bouncing off your site quickly or they’re not converting, that’s a sign that there might not be a market for your product. On the other hand, if people are staying on your site and signing up for your email list - that’s a good sign that there is interest in what you’re building. You can then take this information and decide whether to continue working on your MVP or pivot to something else. Which approach do you prefer - MVP or Landing Page? 🤔 ________________ Here's a link to the mentioned landing page: https://www.CACideas.com

Replies

Leon Vinny
I completely agree with this approach, in fact we have been using this approach for our product as well and it really helped us streamline and get a clear understanding of the problems to focus on. Great work with the blog!
Philip Snyder
This is a great approach! Easiest way to quickly validate new ideas.
Heidi Ye
Truth! 1 week vs 1 year