MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
An MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is the smallest version of a product that delivers real value to real users while testing a business assumption. It is not a half-finished product but a deliberately reduced one: every feature has to answer an open question. The goal is learning under real conditions — before the budget for a full product is spent.
The term comes from Eric Ries' Lean Startup methodology. “Minimum” refers to scope, not quality: an MVP that crashes or confuses users validates nothing. The decisive question is not “What can we cut?” but “What is the riskiest assumption — and what is the smallest thing that tests it?”
The most common mistake in practice: teams build a small finished product instead of a learning instrument. They cut features, but not the open questions — and after months of development end up with a product that technically works but has not proven a single assumption. An MVP without a defined learning question is just an expensive first release.
At decivo, an MVP is almost always preceded by a prototype. The reason is sober: many assumptions can already be tested with a clickable prototype for €3,500 — without any development. What gets built as an MVP afterwards is smaller, sharper, and cheaper, because validation happened before, not after.