That one early adopter got the concierge treatment. Instead of interacting with the FotT product via impersonal software, she got a personal visit each week from the CEO of the company. He and the VP of product would review what was on sale at her preferred grocery store and carefully select recipes on the basis of her preferences, going so far as to learn her favorite recipes for items she regularly cooked for her family. Each week they would hand her—in person—a prepared packet containing a shopping list and relevant recipes, solicit her feedback, and make changes as necessary. Most important, each week they would collect a check for $9.95. […]

Each new customer got the concierge treatment: personal in-home visits, the works. But after a few more customers, the overhead of serving them one-on-one started to increase. […]

In a concierge MVP, this personalized service is not the product but a learning activity designed to test the leap-of-faith assumptions in the company’s growth model. In fact, a common outcome of a concierge MVP is to invalidate the company’s proposed growth model, making it clear that a different approach is needed. This can happen even if the initial MVP is profitable for the company. Without a formal growth model, many companies get caught in the trap of being satisfied with a small profitable business when a pivot (change in course or strategy) might lead to more significant growth. The only way to know is to have tested the growth model systematically with real customers.

Eric Ries – The Lean Startup