AN INTERESTING IDEA FROM LUCY BERNHOLZ ON PHILANTHROPY 2173

Venture capitalists are talking about products that get to market with only the most basic features. These products/services — think iPhone, twitter, Flip video camera — go out to customers in a near raw state and then the developers behind them watch what happens. How do customers use them? What features do they want most, ask for most persistently? This process does several things — it allows for real-time feedback from users to be useful in product development, it lowers the cost to getting a product out there, it (theoretically) brings in revenue faster (assuming first product is not free), and it builds a customer base early on. It relies on being able to “release early and often” (in other words, to iterate fast) It also limits the “oval office” syndrome of only talking to those in your inner circle and then pretending to know what the outside world wants.

What would this look like in philanthropy? Perhaps foundations might engage nonprofits and activists sooner in designing programs and strategies? Perhaps nonprofits might listen to their constituents earlier about what they need, even trying to act as “thru-ways” for that information to get to funders? Is it too risky to do this (life-saving services are not video cameras, after all)? Where does your organization fit on a spectrum from “minimum viable product” to “analyzed ad infinitum and thus perfect in every sense except it lacks any reality testing?”

This is the entire text on this topic. The blog Philanthropy 2173 is here.