Steve Blank, renowned scholar and creator of the Customer Development framework, and Eric Ries, founder of the Lean Startup methodology, advocate for the use of MVPs as a critical tool for understanding and validating the market.
An MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is an early, streamlined version of a product or service, designed to uncover customer problems and validate the business concept before committing significant resources to full-scale development.
The core idea behind an MVP is grounded in validation and continuous learning.
MVPs are an essential tool for rapidly testing a venture’s key assumptions and capturing real feedback from the market and customers. Based on these insights, the founding or product team can iterate and refine the solution in line with actual user needs, enabling a more targeted, efficient development process that delivers higher value and better aligns with client expectations.
In summary, when designing an MVP, it is essential to consider the key characteristics this tool must incorporate in order to fully unlock its potential:
Focus on validation: Steve Blank emphasizes that the primary objective of an MVP is to validate or invalidate the core assumptions of a business before committing substantial time and resources to the full development of a product.
Simplified version: Ries stresses that MVPs should be as simple as possible and include only the essential features needed to validate the underlying hypotheses. This approach enables a faster launch to market and minimizes the waste of time and resources on non-critical functionalities. Minimum product, not mediocre: Despite being “minimum,” an MVP must not be low quality or flawed. It should be sufficiently robust and reliable to deliver a meaningful user experience and to capture high-value insights.
Measure and learn: According to Eric Ries, the essence of an MVP lies in measuring and learning from the data generated through its use.
Iterate and pivot: Founders and product teams must be prepared to adjust their approach and pivot when the evidence shows that the initial concept is not performing as expected. If an MVP fails to validate the assumptions, the strategy should be refined and tested again from a different angle.
A prototype is an initial representation or sample of a product, design, or system, created to test concepts, experiment with ideas, and validate features, functionalities, technologies, and customer interactions before developing the final solution. It is an early, simplified version that enables teams and founders to visualize the end product, run controlled tests, and identify potential issues or improvements.
Prototypes can take many forms, ranging from mock-ups to fully functional physical or technological models, as well as interactive software prototypes.
The key is that a prototype must capture the essential elements of the product or service so that its design, features, and usability can be effectively evaluated. Prototypes are used at different stages of the development process, from early ideation through to refinement and final adjustments prior to market launch.
To conclude this distinction, it is important to stress that MVPs should be developed with minimal resources and within a short timeframe, with the purpose of validating the market, value proposition, business model, and scalability of the project. Prototypes, on the other hand, typically require longer development cycles, more diverse resources, and higher costs, as they are designed to validate and analyze functionalities, underlying technology, and customer interaction with the solution.
