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created: Wed 16 September 2015; status: published;
MVP should be less than you think, and then, having evaluated it, should be even less. While building the MVP for ArtsFuse we actually built an MVP plus 12 months of feature development, which we thought was MVP at the time. Nope - it was way too much.
Our understanding of the product market changed the instant we started trying to formulate a sales pitch as opposed to a startup pitch. Then it became clear how irrelevant all the product we had built was - it had very little to do with being sellable. In fact, we were so desperate to make a sale, we were ready to promise anything...so why did we pre-build if we were willing to build whatever we could actually sell?
MVP is important, but do not go crazy building things. Get a website, write product literature, write sales copy, prototype a few things. But your MVP is whatever you can sell. Perhaps we should officially call it "Minimum Sellable Product". When you have someone interested, then you can get real ideas and feedback and deliver that. Then build. You can evolve however you want in the future, back to your original plan.
Our understanding of the product market changed the instant we tried to formulate a sales pitch as opposed to a startup pitch.
Be very careful with MVP: it is far smaller than you think it is.