Ever since Eric Ries unleashed the cult of The Lean Startup upon the world — and with it a plethora of lingo — we all can’t seem to get enough of the fabled MVP: The Minimum Viable Product.
I literally hear it everywhere — and all the time. Once the domain of techies I now hear people talk about their kid’s MVP lemonade stand (no joke!). The concept makes sense; at least in the early stages of your product: You build something which is small, contained and quite literally represents the minimum amount of work you can get away with to test out your hypothesis. Better that way than wasting time, energy and money to build something which nobody wants.
The funny thing with the MVP though is: In professional sports MVP stands for Most Valuable Player! Which is quite the opposite — it’s the guy who put in the most work, has the most talent and proved himself on the battleground of the sports tournament.
You can’t MVP your way to becoming MVP!