Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
David Roberts
I teach people to land software development jobs ? Co-Founder of Crushing Digital
By now, most developers are sick of the term. Widely misunderstood and miscommunicated (in the same way terms like 'agile' are misunderstood) and yet the term has infiltrated almost every development team in the world.
For a new startup (I'm talking about a group of friends building v0.1) they focus on the M.
I want to do the least amount of work possible before handing over to the salesperson. If we sell lots of it, we'll talk about v0.2
Nobody gets to v1.0 ..... that's just dream talking ;-)
What developers should be focussing on is the V, but what is 'viable'? What is the success factor for v0.1 and our MVP? What the developers are chasing when they want to down tools is product-market fit. We're a long way from there though!
Your MVP should be the minimum product in order to test and gauge customer feedback. This is not the time to down tools. This is the time to keep your heads down, focus and listen. Collect as much feedback data as possible and iterate until you reach a fit. You'll know it's a fit as people will start offering you money for your product or service!
If you focus on the M instead of the V, you'll have minimum product alright, but nobody will want it. You may get a few users but then it fizzles out. It's commonly known as a waste of time!
Business Development Director - Manufacturing, CPG&R and Energy verticals Europe at EPAM Systems
4 å¹´Simple and very good article. Going always for the "V".
This is a good article David. I think it puts the emphasis in the business mindset all engineers should attempt to develop. Sometimes good technical ideas can't find the proper market niche to grow due to poor business planning, sometimes what seemed like a good technical idea turns out it wasn't when looked at through the revenue numbers. Startups need to be keener in both fields in order to breakthrough.