How minimal should an MVP be?

Minimal in scope, not in quality. Cut features until one core problem is solved end-to-end, then make that path genuinely work. A broken product tests nothing but users' patience.

What's the difference between an MVP and a prototype?

A prototype simulates — users click through and pretend. An MVP is real: people adopt it into their workflow and vote with continued use. Prototypes test comprehension; MVPs test demand.

MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

The smallest version of a product that delivers real value to early users, built to learn from the market with the least effort.

Deliverables & Artifacts

An MVP is the leanest product that still solves a real problem for real users — enough to ship, learn, and iterate, but no more. Its purpose is to test the riskiest assumptions of a business with the least time and money, before committing to a full build.

The word that trips teams up is viable: an MVP must actually deliver value, not just be small. A cramped, broken first version teaches you that people dislike a bad product, not whether they want the real one. Getting the MVP scope right is the first step toward product-market fit.

In practice

A founder plans six months of build: integrations, roles, dashboards. An MVP pass cuts it to the one workflow the target user is hired for — import data, get the weekly report — shipped in six weeks to ten design partners. The learning arrives immediately: retention is fine, but every buyer asks the same pricing question, and two “must-have” integrations go unmentioned. The next quarter is planned on evidence instead of the original guess.

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Design from scratch (MVP) →

MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

In practice

Frequently Asked Questions