Minimum Viable Products are these products with the features that allow them to be deployed. A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a strategy used to avoid building the products that customers may reject or do not want. It is a strategy and a process that is directed towards making and selling products to customers. Ries, the brain behind MVP, defines MVP as “the version of a new product that allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort” (Ries, 2009). MVP is decidedly and not formulaic. This means that MVP is an interactive process that requires idea generation, judgment, prototyping, data collection, presentation, analysis, evaluation, and learning.
Minimum Viable Products are very important to the lean startup process. The Lean Startup is majorly concerned with creation and management of startups and getting a desired product to the customers faster. Lean startup must therefore involve the development of minimum viable products. The process begins with visualization of the problem that requires to be solved. The next step is the development of the MVP to start the learning process as fast as possible. The startup can then work, upon the establishment of MVP. This involves measurements and learning, and includes actionable metrics that demonstrates the cause and effect question (Ries, 2012).
DQ2: If you were going to start a new restaurant, what could be an MVP (Minimum Viable Products) for that restaurant, and why?
The main purpose of MVP is learning in order to make essential decisions concerning the direction of the business. Its intention is to accelerate the learning process. For a new restaurant, an MPV could be the menu. A menu is an essential feature for a new restaurant. As an MVP, it would enable the restaurateur avoid dishes that customers may reject, by testing whether a certain menu is appealing to the customers. This gauges the likelihood of success. It helps in learning and making essential decisions concerning the restaurant’s menu, such that the dishes served are not considered underwhelming to the target market.
References
Ries, E. (2009). Minimum Viable Product: A guide. Retrieved October 18, 2012 from http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-viable-product-guide.html
Ries, E. (2012). The lean startup methodology. Retrieved October 18, 2012 from http://theleanstartup.com/principles
