MVPs
1 min read
The term MVP is one of the most abused in product development. It is often used without a shared definition and, worse, used to justify shipping bad products.
Whenever I hear a team say "We are shipping an MVP", I will ask how they define MVP. The most common answer is "it's a minimum viable product". I will respond that I know what the acronym stands for — what I am asking for is a definition. I am always surprised how many teams don't have an answer to this question.
I will offer my definition:
MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product.
An MVP is a product released to a statistically significant group of people that tests a single hypothesis.
It has measures and counter-measures.
Its purpose is to gain enough understanding to provide a vantage point to determine what to build next.
Ideally, an MVP should:
Have enough value that people are willing to use it or buy it initially (solves a problem for people)
Demonstrate enough future benefit to retain early adopters and grow its audience (understands the initial and future audience)
Provide a feedback loop to guide future development (testable and able to gain insight)
By this definition a majority of things shipped at companies are not MVPs. They are a collection of what could be built in some time frame.
Coda
I know the concept of a Minimum Lovable Product is popular with designers because it attempts to prevent low-quality things from shipping. While I am not opposed to this concept, I think it can introduce unnecessary work in some situations. If you are just trying to see if something might work, minimally valuable is a better goal than lovable. People will get value from things that aren't necessarily lovable — they are merely functional enough to meet a need or satisfy some job to be done. Lovable can come later.