How do you define and validate your MVP for a software product launch?

I've found that I generate a lot of ideas and end up with multiple options to pursue from problem and market discovery work. Shaping and prioritizing solutions based on my organization's mission and value chain helps ensure I'm investing in the right opportunity.

Creating a prototype or landing page, and manually fulfilling user requests behind the scenes - one of the best ways we can validate a concept, observe user behavior, and gather feedback before investing in development. An example would be Zappos - started by showing shoe images on a website and manually purchasing and shipping orders from local stores

In the past I've used simple scoring structures to help clarify the value of different features being considered as part of the MVP build. For example, have stakeholders score each feature on impact on a scale of 0 to 4, where zero is no impact and 4 is something like a paradigm-shifting improvement. Ask them about each score when given to gauge to what extent the score is an assumption or based on detailed knowledge of use. Scores across groups can show where assumptions are being made. If one group gives a feature a 1.5 and another gives it a 3.5, you can see there is a gap in understanding the feature, its use and value. It's not one group is right and the other wrong. It's that you need to fill that gap with internal knowledge.

When building a device management app MVP, we defined our hypothesis - "A centralized platform will help on-ground teams efficiently manage distributed devices at scale." To measure this, we tracked key metrics like devices added, device addition time, and incident resolution times. The metrics validated our core hypothesis but also revealed device onboarding was too slow due to manual configurations. This insight led us to build a centralized configuration management feature, drastically improving onboarding speed. Tying metrics tightly to the hypothesis is key to refining the product-market fit.

Focus on the customer experience - your metrics need to reflect what is important to your users and buyers. Before putting in the effort to track a metric, think about whether it is truly useful and moves the needle.

Sticking on to MVP is a mindset needed for the agile team. Keeping customers engaged through out is the key. all techniques listed above are great, however business users can tweak / fine tune the needs as how the system progresses. Team can & should adapt to them; which the the coolest benefit of being in agile development

Again and again I experience that it is challenging to really limit the scope for the MVP when actually building it. It's much tempting to extend the scope here and there as you already envision where the product will need to go next. In gathering input on ideas and visions for the next stage(s), I have experienced that using mockups or even simple screen designs allow you to take the user/customer on that journey at much lower cost, while allowing even greater flexibility.

MVP can be released to a focused group of target users. Feedback can be gathered with tools like Hotjar and UserTesting, while survey platforms may provide additional insights. For tracking key metrics, especially in B2C, analytics solutions like Mixpanel can be helpful. Monitoring metrics against targets might be done using dashboards with tools like Datadog. Based on feedback and data, you can iterate quickly by removing friction and adding features. A/B testing could be performed using Optimizely.

Start by identifying your North Star metric, a single key performance indicator (KPI) that aligns with your core business goal. Tools like Mixpanel or Amplitude can help track user engagement and validate if your MVP is hitting the mark. Iterate based on real user data to refine and improve your product before scaling.