Building an MVP of a Q&A Service With a New Revenue Model in About Three Months and Testing It in the Market

Overview

Pixis Inc. had envisioned a Q&A service in which influencers not only earn money by answering fans' questions, but every time another fan pays to view that Q&A, both the influencer and the fan who asked the question earn revenue. It was an unprecedented, patent-pending mechanism, and although interviews beforehand drew a positive response, nobody could know whether people would actually use it until it was out in the world.

We formed a single team with Pixis's developers, took part from the business design stage, and developed "Question Market," a web service narrowed down to the minimum necessary features, in about three months. After the release, we began testing it with real users.

Challenges

• With an unprecedented revenue model, the market's response couldn't be predicted in advance
• Building a finished product before launching would mean a large loss if it wasn't accepted
• Engineers from two companies were developing as one team for the first time

What We Did

• Took part from the business design stage and narrowed the features down to only those needed to test the hypothesis
• Implemented questions, answers, paid viewing, and revenue distribution to influencers and askers
• Ran a mixed team that didn't divide work by company, with members reviewing each other's work
• Built a production environment with low running costs, suited to the validation stage

Results

• Released about three months after the initial concept, and began market validation with real users
• Learned of a response that interviews beforehand had not revealed: once money was involved, askers became cautious and influencers found it harder to answer casually
• Based on the validation results, the client was able to decide to close the service before making a large investment and move on to the next stage

The Value Lies in Launching Early and Deciding Early

In a new business, stakeholders saying "that sounds interesting" does not necessarily translate into actual use. In this project too, there was a gap between the positive response beforehand and the response at the moment of actually paying. This gap only became clear once users were using a working service. Looking back, narrowing the features even further might have allowed validation faster and at a lower cost, and we are applying this way of judging scope to our next development work as well.

The value of an MVP lies not only in finding success early, but in being able to decide whether to continue at low cost. Our relationship with Pixis continues today, and we are working together on the next project, putting these lessons to use.

Our Scope of Work

• Business and service design
• Requirements definition, design, development, and testing (as a mixed team with the client's developers)
• Production environment setup

Client Information

Company Name

Pixis Inc.

Frequently Asked Questions

We have engineers in-house. Can you develop together with them? Yes. In this project, the client's engineers and ours formed a single team and developed the service while reviewing each other's work.

How far should features be narrowed down for an MVP? Narrow them down to only the features essential for testing your business hypothesis. In this project, we kept the ideas that came up on a wish list and decided what to include based on whether it was needed for validation.

What happens if the validation results are disappointing? We look back together, down to the reasons, and decide whether to change direction or stop, based on how users responded. In this project, those lessons are being applied to the next project.

Related Information

• Build new business ideas small and test them → PoC and MVP Development
• Development of web services involving payments and revenue sharing → System Development

Related news

• Question Market, a Q&A service built together with fans, is released

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