Veterans make particularly successful entrepreneurs and business owners because of the unique skills they bring from their military backgrounds. Getting started can be overwhelming – how do you decide how much to invest and when to dive in?
Minimum Viable Product/Service
You can test your great idea for a business concept by developing a minimum viable product, which is a prototype of your product that tests its value with minimal time, money, and risk. This is a great way to make sure people actually want to purchase what you have to offer before you invest lots of time and money.
MVPs can help you avoid becoming an entrepreneur horror story.
Barebones
Essentially, an MVP is a stripped-down version of your product or service with only its most important features. This will allow you to gather momentum as you start your business.
It also invites feedback from customers to help shape the development of your full-fledged version – so you’re offering something you know people want.
How to create an MVP
Though there are many ways to create an MVP, there are few suggestions that can get you started. You may want to begin by building and launching a free website and/or landing page for your product or service. You don’t have to know how to code or even know much about website design to do so. There are many tools, some of them free, that will help you get started such as Wix.
Next, consider publishing an explainer video to introduce your product or service. These videos can look intimidating but once again there are great tools to help you out, like Animiz. Finally, create a paper or digital prototype of your product that you can show to interested individuals and companies.
And that’s it! You’re well on your way to starting a business responsibly!
