Minimum Viable Product (MVP): Definition, Examples, and Benefits

A minimum viable product (MVP) is an early iteration of a product that provides just enough functionality to satisfy customer needs. Building an MVP helps you gather customer feedback on a product’s core concept while minimizing upfront costs and lengthy work. 

In a nutshell:

• An MVP is a bare-bones version of a new product that is launched to test user reception
• Examples of companies that started with MVPs include Duolingo, Dropbox, and Zappos 
• Key benefits of building an MVP include reduced upfront cost, potential to attract early adopters, early feedback, and increased room for flexibility

What is a minimum viable product?

The Lean Startup author Eric Ries defines a “minimum viable product” as the version of a new product that enables the collection of the maximum amount of insights with the minimum amount of effort. 

Broken down, MVPs have two core attributes: 

• Minimum: MVPs should skip non-essential features and minimize resource investment.
• Viable: MVPs should be completely functional and satisfy the user’s needs. 

Teams release MVPs to validate ideas against customer judgment without committing to the product’s full-scale development. Customer feedback gives teams actionable ideas for the product’s future iterations. 

MVP in Agile

Agile processes often begin with MVPs as the first iteration of a product or project. Honing in on a few core features helps Agile teams release products faster and receive stakeholder feedback on the product’s core functionality earlier. 

Additionally, the product’s lack of additional bells and whistles makes course correction easier and cheaper. 

MVP examples 

Many of today’s biggest names in innovation started as MVPs. Below are a few examples that illustrate how building an MVP can benefit the product development process. 

Duolingo

The language-learning app Duolingo originated as a crowdsourced translation service hidden behind free language learning. The original prototype used web articles as language-learning exercises and collected user answers as translations. It assumed that a translation was correct if multiple users submitted it as an answer. 

Creating an MVP enabled them to analyze how users interacted with the product. While the company’s profit model initially hinged on the sale of crowdsourced translations, early iterations of the app revealed that its main appeal was the gamification aspect, which suggested the potential for solid user retention. 

Based on these findings, Duolingo focused on making its lessons more engaging. Once it secured enough active daily users, it switched to a freemium model, earning revenue from ads and subscriptions. 

Dropbox

The file-hosting platform Dropbox used a product demo MVP to attract new users when it launched beta signups in 2007. Founder Drew Houston wanted to assess market demand, but deemed his prototype unready for public release. 

Developing a complete, launch-ready product without a clear picture of public interest would have been a potential waste of time and resources. Houston, determined to gauge demand ahead of time, instead recorded a video demonstrating the product’s core features. After the video's release, beta user signups shot up from 5,000 to 70,000. 

Zappos

When Zappos was launched in 1999, the concept of online shopping had yet to break into mainstream consciousness. The question of Americans’ willingness to buy shoes on the internet still needed testing. 

To gauge demand, Zappos set up a simplebsite and posted photos of shoes for sale.

The experiment didn’t even need inventory. Whenever a customer transacted, Zappos would buy their desired product at a physical store and have it shipped to their address. It didn’t take long for the company to take off; between 1999 and 2000, Zappos generated about $1.6 million in gross sales. 

Setting up shop with little inventory was a low-cost way of answering their main question. Once online retail proved viable, Zappos expanded, venturing into dropshipping and eventually buying their own warehouses. 

Types of MVPs

Demo video MVP

Demo videos are a great way to help your customers visualize your product’s core features. Although they don’t reveal the intricacies of how your customers interact with your product, demo videos are effective at building product interest.

As seen with Dropbox’s example, demo videos are good for products that perform their functions well but still require debugging before public release. 

Flintstone MVP

The Flintstone MVP, also known as the Wizard of Oz MVP, tests a product’s market viability by providing a manually-run imitation. The Flintstone MVP follows the same concept as the Flintmobile: it achieves a goal using manpower rather than automation.

Launching a Flintstone MVP lets you gauge customer demand without investing in full-scale development. 

It is also called the Wizard of Oz MVP because it is like the titular character of L. Frank Baum’s classic novel, hides the manual aspect from the user, passing the solution off as automated. 

Zappos, in its early stages, is an example of a Wizard of Oz MVP. The founders manually purchased and delivered products to their customers while making it appear as though stocks were already available. 

Concierge MVP

The concierge MVP is similar to the Flintstone MVP in that it provides services manually rather than through automation. However, unlike the Flintstone MVP, the concierge MVP does not hide the manual aspect. 

Both solutions allow you to test demand for services that might otherwise be difficult to develop. 

Single-Feature MVP

As its name suggests, the single-feature MVP zeroes in on a specific product function. Developing a single-feature MVP allows product developers to focus on solving the users’ main problem effectively instead of expending resources on additional bells and whistles.

MVP benefits

Below are some of MVP’s key benefits:

Minimizes initial spending

Investing in a product's full development without an accurate demand forecast is a substantial financial risk. 

Take the example of Quibi, a short-lived short-form video streaming service. The app was built on the assumption that the popularity of TikTok and Instagram reels would translate to a demand for high-budget short-form content. 

The company spent about $1 billion commissioning the creation of 175 original shows, only to shut down eight months after launch. 

MVPs do not guarantee success. However, they ensure that failure is less costly. 

Attracts early adopters

An MVP is a tangible product pitch—it demonstrates the product’s most essential features while also providing a glimpse of future possibilities. An effective MVP will have customers hooked on your product’s potential. This could lead to getting attention from potential investors or users.

Gathers feedback early

In essence, an MVP is a low-risk experiment that tests a simple core hypothesis: Will this sell? Like any experiment, it allows you to gain insights beyond your initial inferences. It shows you how your customers interact with the product, including what they like about it, what they don’t like, and what gets them hooked. 

The information you retrieve is valuable for future iterations. The data you collect from an MVP enables you to add product improvements based on evidence rather than mere projections. With these data-driven changes, you increase your chances of satisfying and retaining users. 

Leaves room for flexibility

Your initial idea isn’t always the best. Fortunately, building an MVP instead of developing a complete product makes course correction significantly easier. It allows you to add new features to an existing product while wasting less time scrapping unnecessary ones. 

How to build an MVP

MVPs are a low-cost way of testing market demand, attracting customers, and gathering data. Here’s how to build one.

1. Identify your target market 

Knowing your customer is as crucial as knowing your product. A deep understanding of their needs and behaviors makes it easier to satisfy them. 

It is wiser to cater to one type of customer than to attempt to appeal to a broad audience. Focusing on a target market saves you from adding features only applicable to niche use cases. 

Meanwhile, defining your target market narrows down the problems your product needs to solve. You can dedicate your time and resources to perfecting key features, which increases your product’s chance of resonating with customers.

2. Define the main problem

A defined problem provides a more concrete direction for product development. Understanding the problem results in having clearer answers to the following questions:

• Who is affected by this problem?
• What are the customers' main pain points?
• What tools can help them address these pain points?
• How much work is needed to complete these tools?

3. Analyze competitor offerings 

Gain a competitive edge by analyzing what your competitors bring to the table. When ideating your MVP features, take note of the following:

• Why do customers buy from your competitors?
• What issues do competitor products have?
• Can your product address the pain points your competitors overlook?
• What can your product provide that competitors do not?

4. Narrow down essential features

After you’ve studied your target market, customer pain points, and competition, you’ll likely have a good idea of what to build. Identify your users’ primary pain and ideate features that address them then determine which features are most essential to the product’s core purpose.

Having a product backlog helps keep the product development process organized. 

A product backlog is a prioritized checklist of required product features. It breaks each feature down into concrete action items, giving you a clearer picture of how to build your product. 

5. Build the product 

Follow the list of tasks under the product backlog until you arrive at a finished MVP. Once each feature has been completed, tick its item from your product backlog. 

6. Release product for feedback

Once you have a functional MVP, release it to your intended audience. This could be potential investors, contracted stakeholders, select early-access users, or the general public. 

Options for gathering feedback include surveys, focus groups, interviews, and A/B testing. Select the option that gives you the most valuable data in the most efficient way. 

A quick survey might reveal trends in user behavior for a large user base. Meanwhile, interviews can provide in-depth insights with a smaller group of initial users.

Effective questions should lead to actionable steps for improving the product. Examples of useful MVP questions include:

• How satisfied are you with the product?
• Does the product address your pain points?
• Which features helped you most?
• Which features did you like least?
• How much would you pay for this product?
• Did you encounter any bugs or issues?
• What changes or additions would make the product more useful to you?

7. Iterate based on feedback

The feedback you gather will determine the next step for product development. If the response you received skews negative, abandoning the product might be the best idea. It saves you from expending additional resources on a product the market doesn’t need. 

If feedback skews positive, incorporate user insights into your plans for future iterations. This step typically involves improving product efficiency, adding new features that align with user needs, and allocating additional resources based on projected demand. 

MVP development best practices 

Prioritize viability

A common mistake in building MVPs is prioritizing the minimum viable. Emphasizing cost-efficiency over functionality will inevitably lead to an underdeveloped app. 

If you make your customers interact with an MVP that barely resembles the final product, gathering useful insights for future iterations may be difficult.

Prepare for success 

Successful MVP launches set high customer expectations. Be prepared to scale with demand; properly assess the resources needed to accommodate new users. 

Failure to plan accordingly will lead to heavier workloads or customer dissatisfaction, which can damage your organization’s reputation. 

Use project management software

Building an MVP is just the first step in the product development process. After receiving feedback, you will need to constantly iterate until you arrive at a satisfactory product. 

Project management software can help your team keep track of all necessary work. A good one provides a centralized location for all product requirements while providing visual representations of project progress.

Shortcut’s product management tools are particularly useful for product development. The software provides the following:

• Easy-to-edit product backlogs
• Roadmaps, timelines, and Kanban views for progress visualization
• Objectives that connect day-to-day tasks with project goals
• Burndown and velocity charts that report real-time project insights
• Integrations with popular product management tools, including Figma, GitHub, Notion, and Slack

Read the Shortcut for product teams page for more information. 

Implement a project management framework

Project management frameworks add a clear structure to the product development process. They provide concrete steps for navigating the cycles of testing and iteration that will follow your MVP launch. 

Agile frameworks are sufficiently equipped to enable success after an MVP launch. They emphasize flexibility and adjusting plans based on feedback. Here’s how a few of the most popular Agile frameworks help MVP development:

• Scrum meetings help your team stay on the same page about product goals. 
• Kanban boards help you visualize product completion and task prioritization. 
• Feature-driven development allows you to perfect core features first before allocating time for the non-essentials. 

Summary

Product development is a costly and time-consuming process. Without proper research, you may end up wasting valuable resources developing products that customers don’t actually need.

The most effective way to test product-market fit is to launch an MVP. By building a bare-bones version of your product, you can test your idea against customer judgment with minimal investment. 

MVPs help you gain insights into customer behavior that surveys, interviews, focus groups, and other market research methods might overlook. Good MVPs might also help attract early adopters, such as investors and users. 

Shortcut can help guide you through your product development journey. Our project management tools help you centralize customer feedback, organize product backlogs, and keep track of project progress. Read our pricing page for more information. 

FAQs

What is the difference between an MVP and a mockup?

A mockup is a static visual representation of an unbuilt product’s planned design. Meanwhile, an MVP is an early product version that meets the minimum number of customer requirements. Mockups exist to test possible product designs, while MVPs exist to test customer reception. 

What is the difference between an MVP and a prototype?

A prototype is a working model of a product designed to test a concept. Prototypes mainly exist to test a product’s usability, while MVPs exist to test customer reception. Prototypes can be used as MVPs.

Are MVPs exclusively for startups?

Startups, with their limited resources, often turn to MVPs to test ideas. However, this strategy is helpful for any organization aiming to validate product concepts with minimal investment and risk.