So You’re Building a “Superhuman of X”?

Don’t lower sign-up friction—raise it Your job at this point is finding early adopters who are at least as passionate about the problems you’re addressing as you are. The way you do this is not by lowering sign-up friction, but by raising it. Position your MVP as a prize Too many entrepreneurs are embarrassed by their MVPs and use labels like alpha

“If I can’t deliver value to my first 10 handpicked customers, what makes me think I’ll be able to do that with thousands of customers trying the product on their own?”

Once you delight your superfans, you’re onto something that can grow. But if you’re missing this early, energetic human feedback loop, it’s almost impossible to “cross the chasm” into mainstream use.

A variation of the invite‐only test is to use the members of the customer discovery program we discussed in the section on ideation techniques. These companies have already opted in to testing new versions, and you already have a close relationship with them so you can follow up with them easily.

1. You can create the aura of exclusivity with an invite-only feature (as Mailbox did).