Key Questions
- What is a Minimal Viable Product?
- How do I decide which features to include in my MVP?
- How do I build an MVP?
- How can I quickly iterate on my MVP?
- What’s the role of prototypes?
- What are the different types of prototypes?
- How can I use prototypes to get useful feedback?
Worksheets & Templates
- SmartSheet: Agile User Story / Product Backlog template (link to Google Sheet)
Start Here
Michael Seibel: How to Build an MVP
(17 min video.) In this video Seibel shares insights on building a minimum viable product (MVP) for startup ideas. He emphasizes the importance of determining the MVP feature set, building prototypes for user testing, and presenting the MVP to early customers or investors. Using real YC company examples like Airbnb, Twitch, and Stripe, Seibel highlights the significance of solving urgent problems and the need to build MVPs quickly.
Shawn Carolan & Steve Blank: A Path to the Minimum Viable Product
(12 min read.) Shawn comes to the aid of startups struggling to select the right minimum viable product (MVP), offering them a tool to do it efficiently and effectively — an MVP tree. He describes its main components and goes through the steps of building an MVP tree, using Roku as an illustrative case study. A key point Shawn makes is that early-stage startups should resist building toward a “mission,” focusing instead on making one customer group excited by a mission-aligned product. He notes that an MVP tree enables a startup to break its mission into smaller components and formulate MVP candidates that could make it sustainable and scalable.
Marty Cagan: Flavors of Prototypes
(6 min read.) Marty looks at the four main types of prototypes, their purpose, and their strengths and weaknesses. He discusses feasibility prototypes (which address technical risks during product discovery), low-fidelity user prototypes (which are more of a simulation than something real), high-fidelity user prototypes (which are still a simulation but look real), and live-data prototypes (which are meant to prove whether an idea really works). Noting there are hybrids that combine aspects of each main type, Cagan highlights the key principle in product discovery: finding the fastest and cheapest way to test out an idea.
Learn More
Steve Blank: Get Customer Feedback by Creating an MVP
(6 min read.) In this video Steve explores the concept of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and its importance for startups in gathering customer feedback. He shares the significance of creating an MVP and how it serves as a crucial tool for obtaining valuable insights from customers. Steve emphasizes the practical application of the MVP approach in the startup journey, highlighting its role in refining products or services based on early feedback. Through clear and concise explanations, he gives a fundamental understanding of how MVPs can effectively guide the development process, enabling startups to iterate and improve based on real-world responses from their target audience.
Andrew Chen: The Next Feature Fallacy: The Fallacy That the Next New Feature Will Suddenly Make People Use Your Product
(4 min read.) In this article, Chen advises against falling into the “Next Feature Fallacy,” the belief that the next added feature will significantly boost user engagement. He explains that this fallacy leads to a cycle of launching, failing, and relaunching products without real improvement. Chen highlights the steep drop-off in user retention, where a typical web app might retain only 2% of initial visitors after 30 days. He argues that most new features fail to address key engagement points, either by targeting already engaged users or by not significantly impacting user behavior. To choose impactful features, Chen recommends focusing on those that enhance the onboarding experience and address non-users and casual users. Understanding the user lifecycle and ensuring that new features facilitate activation and retention are crucial for meaningful growth.
Dan Olsen: How to Iterate & Improve Your Product With Rapid User Testing
(2 hr 26 min video.) Olsen, in this video, discusses his Lean Product Process from his book “The Lean Product Playbook,” focusing on iterating products through rapid prototyping and user testing. He emphasizes understanding customer needs and creating a compelling value proposition. The talk delves into later steps of the process, including defining an MVP, using UX design to develop prototypes, and conducting user tests to gather data and iterate. Olsen, who has a background in engineering and product management, shares practical advice and answers audience questions. He highlights the importance of learning from user feedback and iterating products to achieve product-market fit.
Victor Purolnik: Building an MVP for Non-technical Founders
(1 hr 13 min video.) In Purolnik’s presentation, he addresses non-technical founders looking to develop a minimum viable product (MVP). He emphasizes that complex software development isn’t necessary for most startups; instead, the focus should be on understanding customer needs and market validation. Purolnik advocates using manual processes or no-code tools to quickly test ideas and gather feedback, minimizing upfront technological investments. His key message is to prioritize business validation and market traction over perfecting the technology. According to Purolnik, his approach allows founders to refine their product based on actual user feedback, making the development process more practical and customer-focused.
Steve Blank: An MVP Is Not a Cheaper Product, It’s About Smart Learning
(5 min read.) The article emphasizes that a minimum viable product (MVP) is not always a smaller or cheaper version of the final product. Steve shares a case study of a startup in precision agriculture that initially focused on complex technology but later realized the importance of testing market response. The startup’s key lesson was to prioritize market testing over developing advanced technology, highlighting the need to define the MVP goal accurately.
Steve Blank: Getting the MVP Right
(4 min video.) The video discusses Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) for startups, highlighting their role in gathering feedback from customers. Steve emphasizes that an MVP is not just a scaled-down version of the final product but should focus on learning. He advises testing core business aspects before investing heavily. In a scenario, a founder’s approach to providing farmers with drone imagery is questioned; Steve suggests validating data value first, advocating cost-effective testing methods.
Peter Reinhardt: MVP Doesn’t Mean Anything
(3 min read.) Reinhardt critiques the concept of “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP), arguing that “viable” is an ambiguous and retrospective term. He suggests that striving for viability before launching contradicts the MVP’s purpose, which is to test the market quickly. This mindset can lead to delays and unrealistic expectations. Instead, he advocates for launching “Minimum Testable Products” that focus on gathering feedback and adapting based on user responses. Using Segment.io’s journey as an example, he illustrates how initial tests, like the simple analytics.js tool, provided crucial market validation and guided subsequent development. Ultimately, testability is key to achieving long-term viability.
Kyle Poyar: The Pre-PMF Guide to Product Management
(8 min read.) Poyar’s article outlines six key principles for early-stage startups to accelerate their path to product-market fit (PMF). He emphasizes unlearning traditional practices, starting with a well-defined MVP, prioritizing tasks effectively, moving quickly, setting achievable milestones, and consistently collecting learnings. Traditional product management approaches often slow down startups; instead, founders should focus on rapid delivery, direct problem-solving, and adapting based on real-time feedback. According to Poyar, by following these principles, startups can increase their chances of achieving PMF faster, as demonstrated by the success of companies like June, Notion, and Uber.
Spencer Rascoff: How to Startup: Part 5 – Minimum Viable Product
(4 min read.) In this article, Spencer emphasizes the importance of starting with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in the journey from a nascent idea to a successful tech giant. An MVP is a simplified version of a product designed to test hypotheses and collect user feedback with minimal investment, avoiding the pitfalls of basing product design on untested assumptions. Spencer highlights the failure of Quibi as a cautionary tale of neglecting MVP testing and discusses strategies for building an MVP, including focusing on key metrics and engaging directly with early users. He cites Zillow’s launch strategy as an example of balancing MVP development with user expectations. The article underscores that starting small with an MVP allows companies to iterate and evolve their products effectively over time.