How to Build a True MVP

The term "Minimum Viable Product", or "MVP" is thrown around a lot in product management, but it’s often misunderstood.

Today, I’ll break down what a true MVP is, why it’s crucial for product development, and how to avoid the biggest mistake that causes teams to fail.

Building an MVP correctly can be the difference between launching a successful product and wasting months (or years) on something nobody wants.

A true MVP helps you validate your idea, test assumptions, and iterate quickly. All while minimizing risk.

But if you build too much too soon, you lose the advantages that make the MVP approach so effective in the first place.

The biggest mistake teams make is treating an MVP like a full-fledged product launch. Instead of focusing on the minimum functionality needed to test an idea, they build a bloated, feature-heavy version that takes months to develop.

This defeats the entire purpose of an MVP, which is to learn quickly with minimal investment.

If you spend six months building something before talking to a single customer, you’ve already failed at creating a true MVP.

An MVP is not a really small version of your final product

Many people think of an MVP as a stripped-down version of the final product. More like a less-polished V1.

But that’s not the case. An MVP should be the simplest version of your idea that allows you to test its viability. The idea isn't simply to get something into the market ASAP. The point is to maximize learning with the least effort.

Let’s break down how to build an MVP that serves its intended purpose.

1. Focus on Core Functionality

Your MVP should do one thing exceptionally well. Validate your hypothesis.

Instead of thinking, “What’s the smallest version of my full product?” ask yourself, “What’s the simplest way to test whether my idea solves a real problem?”

It doesn't even need to work. At all.

Zappos confirmed a hypothesis on whether or not people would buy shoes online by taking pictures of shoes from local shoe stores, posting them on their website, and then buying the shoes from the store to ship to customers who purchased them.

No code needed.

If you’re building an MVP, strip it down to the absolute essentials. Forget secondary features, UI polish, or scalability concerns.

If your MVP isn’t embarrassingly simple, you’re probably building too much.

2. Choose the Right MVP Type

Not all MVPs look the same. Depending on your product, different approaches work better. Here are a few common types:

Landing Page MVP – Create a basic webpage describing your product and see if people sign up or express interest before you build it.

Wizard of Oz MVP – Make it look like your product is fully functional, but manually perform the service behind the scenes.

Concierge MVP – Offer a highly manual, personalized service to test demand before building automation

Single-Feature MVP – Build and test just one core feature instead of launching a full product.

Picking the right MVP approach depends on what you’re trying to learn.

Do you need to test demand? A landing page might be enough. Are you unsure how users will interact with your product? A concierge MVP could work. The key is choosing an approach that gives you meaningful feedback quickly.

3. Validate with Real Customers, Not Hypotheticals

Too often, teams build an MVP but fail to test it with actual customers.

You can’t validate a product in a vacuum. Once your MVP is live, get it into the hands of real customers immediately and track their behavior.

If you’re not collecting real user feedback within days of launching your MVP, you’re missing the point and won't validate anything.

4. Iterate Fast & Kill Bad Ideas Quickly

Embrace iteration. Gather feedback and quickly iterate. Your first MVP won’t be perfect. That’s a good thing.

Remember, this should not be viewed the same as a product release. It’s a continuous learning process. Launch, learn, tweak, and repeat.

One of the biggest advantages of an MVP is that it allows you to fail fast and pivot if needed. Not every idea will work, and that’s okay.

Remember, the goal is to figure that out early, long before you waste months of time and tons of money building something nobody wants.

If your MVP isn’t getting traction, don’t force it. Reassess:

Are you solving the right problem?

Are you targeting the right audience?

Do you need to tweak your core functionality?

A failed MVP isn’t a failure. In fact, it’s valuable data. The sooner you realize an idea isn’t working, the faster you can move on to something better.

Final Thoughts: Build to Learn, Not to Launch

A true MVP is about maximizing learning with minimal effort. The teams that succeed with MVPs understand that the goal isn’t perfection or even a fully functioning product.

It’s speed, iteration, and discovery.

If you take away one thing from this, it should be this: An MVP isn’t about building something. It’s about testing it.

I've worked in environments where this is either not understood or not embraced. It leads to millions of wasted dollars, hundreds of wasted hours, and a leadership team that thinks "Man, our product people suck. Why can't they move the needle?"

Every. Single. Time.

Don't let that be you.

If your MVP takes months to develop, you’re doing it wrong.

Start small, test fast, and iterate relentlessly. That’s how real product success happens.

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