MVP stands for minimum viable product in English, which can be according to Wikipedia translated as minimum viable product.
The abbreviation MVP is also used for most valuable player, meaning most valuable player (for example, in the NBA), but this article will be devoted to the former meaning.
Main Meaning of MVP
The philosophy of MVP could be summarized as no one can predict what will be successful, so it’s best to test the thing.You might think you have a great idea for a podcast that would entertain thousands of people and make a living with ease. However, you don’t have a studio, a microphone, and a budget for the associated PR. Too bad…
Many people would stop at this point and put the idea “in a drawer” = put it away for never.
MVP Optics, however, sees it differently.
It doesn’t matter that you don’t have the capital, you still have the opportunity to test the product. And if the test works, you can keep trying and improve the product as you go along.
In other words, you can record the first three episodes of the podcast on your mobile phone, post them on your Facebook and Instagram, and see what feedback they get.
Maybe no one will be interested. But maybe it will interest a lot of people, and you can get the legitimate impression that you might have “hit on something.”
Main problems and disadvantages of MVP
Minimal Viable Product has no disadvantages in the true sense of the word. Most of the disadvantages are more psychological:
- You have to face the possibility of failure
- You have to go with skin in the market (which is hard)
- Many people who have never created anything don’t understand the MVP philosophy and you have to “ignore” their feedback
These disadvantages, however, are easily outweighed by the advantages that a minimum viable product has.
Main advantages of MVP
- You need minimal resources to test the product,
- from the beginning you are in contact with reality,
- you don’t waste capitall on things, that is doomed to failure from the start,
- you’ll be fast, and because of speed, you’ll get through an order of magnitude more iterations in the same amount of time, exponentially increasing the chance of ultimate success.
MVP then also complements perfectly with Lean Canvas, which is a sort of minimalist framework for creating a business/product plan on a single page.If you start by filling out Lean Canvas and continue by creating MVPs your chances of success will go through the ceiling.
Word in conclusion
The world is an inefficient place. But this also creates a huge space to take advantage of inefficiency and offer new, more efficient solutions.
But if you are entrepreneurial and want to maximize your chance of success, it’s definitely a good idea to approach things systematically.
MVP is a great tool for this.
If you don’t believe me, feel free to go down the internet rabbit hole and see how many of the world’s products started out as minimal viable product.
People around you (especially in the Czech Republic) will often not be sympathetic to your efforts, but the potential reward is certainly worth it.
Let me know in the comments, can you think of any ways you could use MVP within your business?
