Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

Defintion:

Ever heard the phrase, perfection is the enemy of progress? It’s very applicable to startup founders that often have a short window of time to prove they can turn their big idea into a viable product or service. That’s why many startups use a development technique called Minimum Viable Product (MVP) which is when they create a bare-bones version of their product with just features to satisfy early customers. The final version of their product or service gets built after receiving feedback from the initial MVP release.

Why a minimum viable product is important for startups?

Why sink money into anything if you don’t have market validation? Especially since startups in their early stages are famously strapped for cash. The wonderful thing about an MVP is that it allows companies to put their product or service into the world with the least amount of effort and dedicated resources while gaining invaluable learnings.

What is the best way to approach developing an MVP?

The most important thing to remember when developing your MVP is that it only needs to solve one problem for one audience. The point of your MVP, after all, is to figure out if your idea is viable. If you launch and don’t get the market validation you need, it’s time to go back to the drawing board. But don’t hamstring your business hypothesis by trying to create an MVP that tries to accomplish too much.

What is a minimal viable product example?

Dropbox, Slack, and Mailchimp are all classic examples of companies that launched with only an MVP. Dropbox’s MVP was its short pitch video explaining its idea to investors. MailChimp was a web design agency that built a simple, self-serve email platform that allowed businesses to reach their audiences at scale. And Slack was originally an internal communication created on an ad-hoc basis for a remote team of video game developers spread out across the country. All that to say, some of the most successful startups in history launched with little more than an idea.