Moving From MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT To A VALUABLE PRODUCT

Nobody wants a product that is minimally viable. Even you, for that matter, won't prefer that just minimally viable product. Would you?

The idea of a minimum viable product, aka MVP, is not new and certainly not ground-breaking anymore. In fact, it is becoming, to put it mildly, outdated. As much as this may seem shocking to you, it is my observation and finding over the last several years. A more comprehensive way to look at this is to treat your products and services as smaller packages that are part of a larger offer.

Classically, we have always treated MVP as a product or service with a minimum set of features. It is supposed to have features that are necessary to be viable and useful to customers, nothing more, nothing less. The whole idea was to keep it simple, easy, quicker to develop, and reduce the time to market testing.

This approach allowed companies to validate their ideas and ensure they solved real problems for their target market, well before putting all bets on their idea. Even for a well-established business, MVP feels like the best way to go.

All the reasons that startups would use to go with MVP still apply to these businesses. It may be to test the viability of the idea in the market or gather feedback and prioritise further development, or both. All in all, MVP seems like a safer way to go in most cases.

Moving beyond MVP

So here comes a new challenge, as the concept of MVP is becoming outdated. In my recent interactions with entrepreneurs and their customers, it is becoming clearer now.