MVP or V1?

by: Douglas Gastich

The term MVP (Minimum Viable Product) has become misunderstood in recent years, with product builders cherry-picking the fun parts but overlooking the critical hard parts.

The fun part: Build the cool stuff, don’t sweat the details.

The hard part: Repeated connection with market, customer testing, and iteration based on usage, feedback, and ‘validated learning’.

Perhaps even more alarming, a builder may rationalize the MVP into a ‘blind V1’, expanding scope because ‘we can’t possibly go to market without that’. The moment you hear this out of your mouth or a colleagues, take a pause.

Are you building an MVP or a V1?

And either way, when was the last time you checked in with a customer? Or better yet, triggered a customer to take an action on their own.

Remember the real definition of the MVP. The term was popularized by Eric Reiss in his book The Lean Startup:

“That version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”

Oftentimes, the MVP does not need to be an actual product at all. It may be a sign up form, or a marketing website with a call to action. Just enough of an experience to get an early view of what the people you think are your customers will do with your eventual product.

Wherever you find yourself in this journey, there is good news. “Validated learning” can be had at any step. Validated learning, part of Reis’s definition and MVP concept, is the act of predicting a customer behavior, providing them a product-related stimulus (your MVP or V1) and then comparing the resulting interaction with your prediction. Ideally this is done in very short spurts with real customers. But even a morsel of validated learning, on some small piece of your app, with even the friendliest of ‘colleague-customers’ will help.

So, are you building an MVP, V1, or maybe you are introducing a new feature to an established product? In any case, let validated learning guide your effort and decisions and you will find your way to the market, happy customers, and great outcomes.