No Steak Knives for Second Place in the Web App World — Use the MVP Light Stack and Always Be First
The only advantage you‘ll have going forward is the ability to tell prospects “we’re just like x — you know, those that beat us to market…”
Lost Narrative
If you’re second, third, or worse, you’ve lost a lot of ground in an already impossible game. The first mover has established itself as the problem-solving brand and walks away with the narrative, cost advantage, price setting, customers, and even all the free advertisement for being novel. If your unique value proposition isn’t unique anymore, what’s the point? Time to embrace the MVP Light Stack today!
“Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.” — Mark Zuckerberg
Release Quickly, Cheaply and Keep Pivoting
You could always release your software for free? Maybe keep maintaining it and share it as open-source on GitHub? Wait, what? Yes, prospects are dim when you’re not first — but that doesn't have to be the case going forward — getting something out, even if it’s just a shell with one button, doesn’t take weeks or months, merely hours.
Let me tell you about the MVP Light Stack. We hear the terms MVPs and POCs all the time and that’s a good thing. Minimum Viable Product and Proof of Concept are critical milestones that should never be skipped. They will establish you, give you credibility amongst peers and investors, get you customers — and if they don’t, you pivot!
MVP Light Stack for Python Users
Truth be told, I made the name up but the idea has been around forever. Think about Visual Basic over C++ back in the day, it was all about quickly creating applications. Today, we have powerful web serving technologies that are great for the likes of Amazon and Spotify, but we also have throwaway ones, that will get you a smart web app in the cloud in hours. If you work in Python and have created a useful, game-changing ML model, then Flask along with a cloud hosting solution like DigitalOcean or PythonAnywhere is all you need to stick your flag on the moon.
Think about it, even though Python comes with clumsy UI controls, it can also be extended to work on the web, the universally accepted front end that anybody around the world can operate! No matter where you are from, we all know how to use a scroll bar, drop-down control and how to operate the “submit” button. And you can do all that without leaving the confines of your favorite programming language!
If you are interested in exploring this further, check out my free videos on the topic at ViralML.com/WebApps
For a fun example, check out how to set up a hosted webserver with a landing page and enable Stripe products in under 5 minutes:
It’s all there and begging to teleport your great ML ideas to the information superhighway right now!
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Manuel Amunategui
amunategui@gmail.com
Twitter: @amunategui
< p name="790f" id="790f" class="graf graf--p graf-after--p">Follow my latest projects at ViralML.com, KeepTheTalk.com & amunategui.github.io.
