What is an MVP?

What is an MVP?

What you should consider when planning a minimum viable product

Before you start with the actual development of your product, it is extremely helpful to understand your customers. With an MVP, you can do this with minimal effort. But what exactly is an MVP?  

MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. This term is often used by product, category or innovation managers to describe an easy-to-use, cost-effective product or service. The aim of this first product is to test whether the customer will buy the product or service in the future.

Put simply, an MVP is the first thing you present to customers to see if you can offer them any added value at all. 

Who developed the concept of the MVP?

The MVP was invented by Frank Robinson in 2001 and popularized by Eric Ries in his book Lean Startup. It has become a cornerstone of high-performance product teams around the world.

What is the goal of my MVP?

To be able to bring something to market as quickly as possible in order to gain your first customers and obtain relevant feedback. This gives you great momentum right from the start and allows you to continuously build on what you have learned.

Lean versus heavy MVP

Only in very few cases does it make sense to build a "heavy MVP", i.e. a product with every conceivable function. In certain exceptional cases, however, this can certainly make sense. For example, with strong product regulation, hard tech (e.g. rocket construction), biotechnology or moonshots (e.g. tunnel construction). 

Are you actually working on a complex tunnel system for autonomous vehicles that are supposed to move in a vacuum? Then don't forget that this idea can also start with a simple landing page that explains what you have in mind.

In most cases, however, a "lean MVP" is completely sufficient. It should be possible to create this very quickly. We are talking about weeks, not months! It is important to note that the functionality should be extremely limited at this point. Don't try to solve all the problems of every conceivable user, but decide on a clearly definable group of initial users. Be clear about which requirements you can ignore for the time being and solve later. 

Of course, you can define a vision that goes much further than your first MVP. However, this will not be fully reflected in the MVP. Your MVP is a starting point and nothing more.

Your MVP shouldn't be anything special. It's about getting started. Don't fall in love with your MVP! 

How do I launch my MVP on the market?

Market launches of new products from big companies like Nike, Apple or Amazon are held with a lot of pomp and fanfare. But seriously, can you remember which day one of these companies initially went to market? I didn't even expect it. The launch simply faded into the ether. Don't expect more when you go live. 

It is not primarily about attracting a lot of attention, but about actually winning customers. In the context of MVPs, the market launch is the moment when the first interaction with the market begins. For example, when you have your first visitors to your website. So you can safely save the press work for later. 

Why can't I talk to customers without an MVP, surely I'll learn something?

It's much harder to learn from customers if they don't have a product to play around with. Of course, you can talk to your potential customers all day long. However, you won't know if you're really solving a problem for your customers until you can demonstrate your solution. 

A few hacks on how to get your MVP quickly

Define a fixed deadline for the launch of your MVP. This could be 3 weeks, for example. Write down your specifications at the beginning. Otherwise, you may find yourself constantly adapting your requirements over the course of the 3 weeks. In the end, you will have a pile of rubbish and nothing to test. This automatically means that all specifications that are not clearly important must be removed. Always remember that the most important thing is to launch something in order to gain feedback and momentum. You can take this momentum with you. So don't fall in love with your MVP. You wouldn't fall in love with an essay you wrote in first grade, would you? You're on a long journey and you're at the very beginning.

Tip: Take the momentum with you and develop your idea iteratively.

In a nutshell. MVPs are here to stay:

• Bringing a product to market as quickly as possible
• Test your idea with real users
• Save money and resources before you spend a large budget on the full development of the product

If you would like to know more about MVPs or have any other suggestions, I look forward to hearing from you.