Testing the market with a soft MVP

[Rperrett2]

I have been working on creating a business that will revolve around creating and selling a detailed line of digital products that are educational in nature for a specific skill set that I have a lot of experience in. Further, my goal will be to produce various forms of these products that can be applied to different niche markets or specialties. One of my value skews will be the ability to customize these products to any business. To further that value skew and support it, I would be offering coaching/consulting sessions to help customize, implement, and support success of the products (for an additional fee).

The reason I'm sharing this here is because my career/life coach wants me to start selling my coaching and consulting services to start generating revenue for this business venture, but also as kind of a combination soft launch/minimum viable product/market research mission.

I'm just curious to hear from any of you who might have experience with a similar MVP mission and get some thoughts and insight on this. Is this a good move or poor use of my time? I'm all for doing things to get this business in motion, and I agree that there may be a market research component that could be helpful by consulting with businesses that can give me insight into their needs around my idea, and what products to develop first. But on the other hand this business is so product focused that I feel like I should be putting all my free time into product development, website building and other things that will give me a tangible business that I can go to market with.

 

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[alperengokmen]

Hi! First of all, good luck with your new business process. If It is required to be honestly, your career/life coach is right on one topic. You are mentioning your value proposition is customizable digital products and add that "I would be offering coaching/consulting sessions to help customize, implement, and support success of the products (for an additional fee)." for this reason first, you can prefer to start selling your coaching and consulting services. It could be a good test process. But please don't forget. It could provide misleading data. Because before people buy consultancy services, they need that know and trust the person providing the consultancy service. So If you are going to do like this and If It is not going to be positive, please don't give up and try other ways. Just think lean methodology and go near your customers asap.