What is a Minimum Viable Product?

A minimum viable product, or MVP, is a product with enough features to attract early-adopter customers and validate a product idea early in the product development cycle. In industries such as software, the MVP can help the product team receive user feedback as quickly as possible to iterate and improve the product.

Because the agile methodology is built on validating and iterating products based on user input, the MVP plays a central role in agile development.

What is the Purpose of a Minimum Viable Product?

Eric Ries, who introduced the concept of the minimum viable product as part of his Lean Startup methodology, describes the purpose of an MVP this way: It is the version of a new product that allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least amount of effort.

A company might choose to develop and release a minimum viable product because its product team wants to:

• Release a product to the market as quickly as possible
• Test an idea with real users before committing a large budget to the product’s full development
• Learn what resonates with the company’s target market and what doesn’t

In addition to allowing your company to validate an idea for a product without building the entire product, an MVP can also help minimize the time and resources you might otherwise commit to building a product that won’t succeed.