MVP design: the smallest thing that could disprove the hypothesis

MVP design — the smallest thing that could disprove the hypothesis

When to load this mode

Past the fake-door stage. Demand signal exists. The question now: does the actual product produce the outcome customers expected. Load when someone says "people signed up — what do we ship to the first cohort," or "we need to know if this works before we scale."

What an MVP actually is

Eric Ries's minimum viable product is not "version 1." It's the smallest object you can put in a customer's hands that returns validated learning about whether the value hypothesis holds. Two parts: smallest, and learning. Miss the smallest, you've built a product. Miss the learning, you've built a demo.