[whatl3y]

Even if slightly unrealistic, I actually think the nicest part is the back of the napkin math and derivation of the numbers to give you context for how big a market is and what you’d need to attack to meet your goals.

I do however have an issue with the wizard of oz method of validating your product. It’s not because of the perceived ethics and I totally understand too many people today build something before ever knowing anything about whether anyone will use or pay for it. Hopefully I didn’t miss it but nowhere does the author discuss the amount of time/people/money it would take to build a working MVP, not to mention how much of your time will be tied up from working on said MVP if you’re oz (i.e. the man or woman behind the curtain until the MVP is built). This is important since it drives how you (or at least I) would move forward: Do you need to quit a full time job and spend 3-6 months 60+ hr/week building your MVP, can you build an MVP in a few weekends, would you need outside help/money to build an MVP, etc etc.

The example in this post mentions a recommendation engine of sorts for individualized fitness programs. This sounds like a fairly high amount of expertise in the field of fitness, some possible AI with trained models sprinkled in and a good amount of curated fitness routine info or I guess individual exercises based on the equipment the user enters that they have. So a lot of time getting with experts (or becoming an expert) AND building a new machine learned model possibly with a nice, usable UI. This sounds like a full time job for 5+ people for 6+ months at least to get any sort of real prototype.