MVP is not a smaller product

Most teams treat an MVP as the product minus features. That is not what Eric Ries meant. In The Lean Startup he defines it as the version that lets you learn the most about customers with the least effort. It is an experiment.

A soccer club does not sign a player after watching a shortened season. It runs a trial to answer one question: should we sign him? An MVP works the same way: the question decides its shape.

Ries cites Dropbox. Drew Houston posted a demo video before building anything, and the beta waiting list grew from 5,000 to 75,000 overnight. The video was the fastest way to find out whether anyone cared.

Name the question, then build the smallest thing that answers it. If you are scoping a first version and unsure what to test, I can help. Reach out.

PS: With today’s AI tools, the effort and cost Ries described in his book have become marginal. That is a topic for the next post.

sources: - “Eric Ries, The Lean Startup (2011) — MVP definition and the Dropbox demo video story (waiting list 5,000 to 75,000); summary at https://www.shortform.com/blog/dropbox-mvp-explainer-video/” - “Eric Ries, ‘Minimum Viable Product: a guide’, Startup Lessons Learned, http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-viable-product-guide.html” - “Lean Startup Co., ‘What Is an MVP? Eric Ries Explains’, https://leanstartup.co/resources/articles/what-is-an-mvp/”