Minimum viable product (MVP)
A minimum viable product is the smallest version of a product that lets the team test a specific hypothesis with real users — not a beta, not a stripped-down v1, but a deliberate experiment whose only job is to produce learning. The success criterion is information gained, not features shipped.
Eric Ries's original MVP definition has been heavily diluted by marketers who use 'MVP' to mean 'v1' or 'first thin release'. The discipline of MVP is hypothesis-driven: state the assumption being tested, design the smallest experiment that tests it, define success criteria up front, and shut down the experiment when the answer is in. A good MVP often isn't a product at all — it's a landing page measuring sign-up rate, a Wizard of Oz interface with humans behind it, or a manual concierge service that simulates the eventual automation. Once the MVP confirms the hypothesis, the team can confidently invest in building the production version.
Related terms
- Minimum marketable feature (MMF)
A minimum marketable feature is the smallest increment of functionality that delivers real user value and could plausibly be released to customers as a standalone improvement.
- Jobs-to-be-done
Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) is a product-discovery framework, popularised by Clayton Christensen, that frames features in terms of the 'job' a customer is hiring the product to do — the underlying outcome they want — rather than demographic personas or feature lists.
- Discovery vs delivery
Discovery vs delivery is the foundational distinction in modern product development: discovery activities (research, prototyping, hypothesis testing) determine WHAT to build and why; delivery activities (engineering, QA, deployment) execute on the decision.