20 Jul 2023
I read a post a little while ago on Bearblog called “Why products should be ‘slick’, not just viable”, and it really resonated with me.
Instead of using MVP (minimum viable product) as the measure of an incremental unit of a product, he uses SLC (simple, lovable, and complete). In essence, SLC is the idea that the product should be complete from the onset – that even though there could be more added to the product, it doesn’t necessarily need to in order to operate as its main function.
However, the key difference between SLC and MVP, in my eyes, is the L – lovable. Take, for instance, ChatGPT. It’s a cha box. That’s it. Chat has been around forever. The design is not new.
But it’s lovable. It was (until Threads, maybe) the fastest growing service ever because it was just that good.
There’s another idea that also resonated - being the only user.From this one, I gained the insight that my products that I have developed previously were for some ephemeral “user” that I thought I identified with. However, when developing the product, I quickly became aware that I wouldn’t use it ever, let alone pay for it.
So, I started to truly look for problems in my own life, ones that I actually become angry at because “why is it like this? How has there been nothing to solve this yet?”
I’ve found 2 problems and because they were truly my problems, I was able to quickly solve them. (I’ll make a couple project posts about them soon)
The last thing I have learned is that it really is that these two concepts work in tandem with each other. To build something SLC, I first have to build something that I would love. It doesn’t have to be complete for me, but I should make sure that it is complete for others, if I want to share it, without ruining the simplicity of the hacky solution.
So, first develop for yourself and solve your pain points. Then keep the simplicity and make it lovable to use.