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What Is 'Incremental Augmentation'?

Incremental Augmentation is the process of using the Iteration Cycle to add new benefits to an existing offer.

Incremental Augmentation helps you minimize the risk by not putting all the pressure in a single iteration.

Incremental Augmentation has its limits. To enter a new market, or change the existing one, you may need to create something new.

Josh Kaufman Explains 'Incremental Augmentation'

Once your Minimum Viable Offer is selling and you've proven that your Critical Assumptions are valid, you're in good shape, but you're not finished. If you're committed to making your offer as good as it can be, you'll need to keep making small changes that improve the offer if you want to stay competitive and attract more customers.

Incremental Augmentation is the process of using the Iteration Cycle to add new benefits to an existing offer. The process is simple: keep making and testing additions to the core offer, continue doing what works, and stop doing what doesn't.

The process of customizing cars is an example of Incremental Augmentation. Starting with a stock car, the "tuner" steadily replaces and upgrades parts: a better engine, spoiler, tinted windows, and chrome hubcaps. The intent of every change is to make the car just a little bit better, until it's the best it can be. When the car is finished, it's a different machine.

Incremental Augmentation helps you improve your offering while minimizing the risk that any single iteration will fail catastrophically. If you're not careful, drastic changes after launch can eliminate the qualities that made your offer attractive or break the systems you use to create the value you're providing to your customers. By making and testing changes quickly and incrementally, you can continually improve your offer without betting the farm, helping you create even more value for your customers over time.

Keep in mind that Incremental Augmentation can only take you so far. In order to enter a new market or change the game, you may need to create something completely new. If that's the case, start over with a new prototype and work your way through the value-creation process from the beginning. When it's ready, get Feedback and use Testing to compare the new version vs. the old version to make sure it's actually better before your launch it.

Questions About 'Incremental Augmentation'

• Have you planned for post-launch iteration?
• What features can you eliminate from your Minimum Viable Offer that you can add later, once you've validated your CIAs?

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"Pick three key attributes or features, get those things very, very right, and then forget about everything else... By focusing on only a few core features in the first version, you are forced to find the true essence and value of the product."

Paul Buchheit, creator of Gmail and Google AdSense

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