Why building an MVP may not be right for you

The oft used terms by startup founders and VCs alike would be MVP and PMF. Building an MVP somehow has become the holy grail of startup success. But is MVP overhyped? Can MVP do more harm than good for a startup?

My experience building an MVP for my fashion startup taught me valuable lessons about the limitations of this approach. It forced me to rethink how we prioritize early-stage product development.

An MVP is a powerful tool, but like any tool, it's not universally applicable. Here's when it might make more sense to reconsider the typical MVP approach:

1. Mature Markets: If you're entering a space with established solutions, your goal isn't extensive feedback; it's offering a clearly superior or distinct product. Market research and competitor analysis are likely more valuable than a rushed MVP.

• Example: Consider a company trying to disrupt the saturated email client market. Instead of launching a bare-bones MVP email client, they might focus on in-depth market research to identify specific pain points that current solutions like Gmail and Outlook don't solve well. They could then develop a product with a unique feature set addressing those specific needs.

2. Products Demanding Perfection:? Medical devices, security systems, and other high-stakes products necessitate rigorous development and full features from the outset. Safety and reliability can't be compromised with a "minimum" version.

• Example: A startup developing a new type of surgical implant. It would be dangerous and unethical to release an MVP with limited functionality. Extensive research, development, and testing are crucial before anything can be brought to market.

3. The False Negative Risk: A poorly executed MVP can kill good ideas prematurely.?Users can dismiss the idea not because it's inherently bad, but because the MVP experience is incomplete or unintuitive. This could prematurely kill promising ideas.

• Example: Imagine a startup with an idea for a revolutionary social media platform. A poorly designed MVP with limited features and clunky UI might fail to attract users, even if the core concept of the platform has potential. Investors and potential users might prematurely dismiss the idea.

4. Behavioral Change vs. Incremental Improvement: Are you building a slightly better mousetrap, or entirely replacing the mousetrap? Significant habit shifts require testing desirability before building an MVP of features.

• Example: A startup aiming to change how people commute by introducing a novel shared electric scooter concept. Before building an MVP fleet of scooters, they need to validate whether people are even willing to adopt this new mode of transport.

5. Desirability vs. Feasibility: What needs validation first? If it's technical feasibility, internal prototyping might be more valuable than an early MVP for external feedback.

• Example: A startup with a concept for a machine-learning algorithm that can greatly improve medical diagnoses. Before building a user-facing MVP, they should rigorously test the algorithm internally to validate its technical feasibility and accuracy.