What Is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?
An MVP is the smallest version of a product with enough features for early adopters to use and pay for — it validates a business hypothesis with minimal time and money spent.
The term comes from Eric Ries' Lean Startup methodology. The core idea: stop building assumptions. Instead, ship the minimum that tests your riskiest hypothesis with real users as fast as possible.
What "minimum" actually means: Minimum doesn't mean broken or embarrassing. It means one core workflow, end to end, working reliably. Not ten features half-finished — one feature completely finished.
The MVP loop:
- Build — the smallest thing that could deliver the core value
- Measure — do real users actually use it? Do they pay? Do they come back?
- Learn — what do the numbers tell you to change?
- Repeat — iterate based on evidence, not assumptions
Common MVP mistakes:
- Building too much before validating demand
- Confusing a prototype (for demos) with an MVP (for real users)
- Skipping billing — if users won't pay in the MVP, they won't pay later
- Adding "just one more feature" before launch
For a SaaS MVP specifically: You need auth, your core feature, and Stripe. Everything else is scope creep until you have paying users giving you feedback.