What is an MVP and how to build the first version of your product

MVP stands for minimum viable product: the smallest version of a product that real people can use and that lets you learn whether the idea works. It is not a demo, not a clickable prototype and not a half-finished app full of bugs.

What an MVP is for

An MVP answers one question as cheaply as possible. For example:

Will people sign up and book a class through an app?
Will promoters send offers to fighters through a platform instead of messages?
Will customers pay a monthly subscription for this service?

If you cannot state the question, you are not building an MVP, you are building a smaller version of everything.

How to decide what goes in

Write the question the first version must answer.
Describe the one core journey a user takes to reach the value: for example, sign up, pick a class, book it.
List everything else and ask of each item: does the core journey fail without it? If not, it waits.
Keep quality in the core journey. Minimum means fewer features, not worse ones. A slow or broken core journey teaches you nothing.

What almost always belongs in an MVP

Sign-in, if users must come back.
Payments, if the question is whether people will pay.
Analytics in every screen, so you see where people drop off.
A simple way for users to contact you.

What can usually wait

Admin dashboards (a spreadsheet or the database is enough at first).
Advanced settings, themes, multiple languages.
Automation of things you can do by hand for the first hundred users.

Launch it to learn

An MVP nobody uses teaches nothing. Plan how the first users will find it: an existing audience, a waiting list, a small ad campaign with measurement. See our app launch plan.

Then look at the numbers: how many signed up, how many reached the core action, how many came back. Decide what to build next based on that, not on the original wish list.

Common mistakes

Building for too long. If the first version takes a year, it is not minimal.
No measurement. Without analytics, you only have opinions after launch.
No plan for users. Building and then hoping people come.
Choosing technology that cannot grow. Minimal scope is fine; a foundation you must throw away is expensive.

We build MVPs together with their launch campaign; see Build & launch.