How To Build a Minimum Viable Product That’s Immediately Valuable
Don’t build your MVP from the ground up
The difference between success and failure with a Minimum Viable Product almost always comes down to deciding what gets built when.
In 20+ years of building all kinds of products, I’ve come to the conclusion that while there is no perfect plan for success, the most damning mistake startups make with their MVP is building it from the ground up. That kind of unstructured product development leads to disaster every time.
Fortunately, avoiding disaster is pretty simple.
Step 1: Define the value proposition and stick to it
For an MVP to be valuable to both your customers and your company, it has to accomplish three things:
- Your MVP must test the core functionality of your product.
- Your MVP must test the full delivery system for your product.
- Your MVP must prove the market viability of the idea on which your startup is founded.
Again, there is no guarantee that your MVP will be successful, but to even begin to determine whether or not you have a success on your hands, your MVP has to test those three hypotheses. Any feature that doesn’t do…
