minimum viable product

also referred to as: mvp · mvps

12 statements across 10 episodes · 2 bullish · 4 bearish · 9 people on the record · first statement Feb 5, 2023 by Marily Nika · across every show →

Everything said about minimum viable product, oldest first

Feb 5, 2023 negative
Insight
Nika: Never train AI models for an MVP; fake functionality with prototypes
“Don't do it for your MVP. It makes zero sense. Do not waste time of data scientists that can train models with using powerful machines that are going to take weeks to train. This is because if you have an MVP and you just want to get buy-in for an idea or a fe…”
Marily Nika Feb 5, 2023 ▶ 14:43 AI and product management | Marily Nika (Meta, Google)
Apr 9, 2023
Insight
Shrivastava: Autonomous vehicles require a fundamentally higher MVP bar due to safety
“The concept of MVP, right, which is so Why be popular in the SaaS product management world or product management world in general has a whole new meaning here at Babel when you work on a product like this, because safety is, is, you know, top of mind for all o…”
Shweta Shrivastava Apr 9, 2023 ▶ 10:19 Product lessons from Waymo | Shweta Shrivastava (Waymo, Amazon, Cisco)
May 18, 2023
Insight
Early product MVPs should optimize for the problems teams want to have
“Whenever I'm asked by teams what features need to be part of their MVP, how do they decide, you know, which features they need to ship first and whatever. I always tell them to optimize for the problems they want to have. You want the problem of customers gett…”
Scott Belsky May 18, 2023 ▶ 21:30 Lessons on product sense, AI, the first mile experience, and the messy middle | Scott Belsky (Adobe)
May 21, 2023
Insight
Söderström: Novel product paradigms require large MVPs to avoid false negatives
“The hardest thing about this is if you're trying something completely new, The MVP needs to be very big so you can build a new UI, but if you didn't do algorithms for a single item feed, you can't tell if it was the right idea, but poor machine learning, right…”
Gustav Söderström May 21, 2023 ▶ 57:41 The science of product, big bets, and how AI is impacting the future of music | Gustav Söderström
Jul 2, 2023 positive
Insight
Zhang: Minimum lovable products must replace MVPs in crowded software markets
“The reason I care so much about minimal level product is because I do think in a world where there are so many different options, it's hard to just be like, Hey, use this thing. It barely meets a quality bar. And so I think this idea of like actually deeply un…”
Jiaona Zhang Jul 2, 2023 ▶ 17:10 Building minimum lovable products, stories from WeWork & Airbnb, and thriving as a PM | Jiaona Zhang
Sep 21, 2023 negative
Insight
Gilad: Most organizations treat MVPs as rebranded beta releases
“One of the patterns I see is that organizations don't know that they can actually learn at a much lower cost. They believe they need to build this elaborate MVP, which is not minimal in any way. And then launch it, and then they will discover it. Basically, it…”
Itamar Gilad Sep 21, 2023 ▶ 50:21 Becoming evidence-guided | Itamar Gilad (Gmail, YouTube, Microsoft)
Oct 29, 2023 positive
Insight
Ries: Cut your planned MVP feature list in half twice before building
“First, the first tip is write out the list of features that are necessary in your MVP, cut it in half, and cut it in half again and build that.”
Eric Ries Oct 29, 2023 ▶ 43:06 Reflections on a movement | Eric Ries (creator of the Lean Startup methodology)
Oct 29, 2023
Insight
Ries: An MVP is the most efficient test of a hypothesis
“MVP is simply for whatever the hypothesis is that we're trying to test, what is the most efficient way to get the validation we need about whether the hypothesis is true or not?”
Eric Ries Oct 29, 2023 ▶ 28:43 Reflections on a movement | Eric Ries (creator of the Lean Startup methodology)
Oct 29, 2023
Insight
Ries: Difficulty scoping MVPs stems from founders refusing to admit unknowns
“The thing I learned is that if people are having trouble coming with MVP, the problem is usually upstream in the chain of deductive reasoning from the vision down to the MVP. It's like usually people are just not super clear on what do I want to learn, and it'…”
Eric Ries Oct 29, 2023 ▶ 44:20 Reflections on a movement | Eric Ries (creator of the Lean Startup methodology)
Dec 11, 2024
Insight
Belsky: A product's core differentiator must be exceptional at MVP launch
“Whatever you put out, your instinct as a team will always be to iterate from there, and so to also make sure that while it can be the minimum viable version of most things, the thing that distinguishes your product the most needs to be done extraordinarily wel…”
Scott Belsky Dec 11, 2024 ▶ 5:21 Making and Leading Products People Love (Scott Belsky) | Lenny & Friends Summit 2024
Jul 6, 2025 negative
Insight
Shlomo: MVPs are dead because AI ruined user attention spans
“There are some things that I don't believe in is like MVPs first and foremost is like, if you're building something that people will not be able to use or is not good enough, especially these days where it's It's so much easier to build software, so the attent…”
Maor Shlomo Jul 6, 2025 ▶ 49:00 Solo founder, $80M exit, 6 months: The Base44 bootstrapped startup success story | Maor Shlomo
Jun 14, 2026 negative
Insight
Pincus: Product teams should eliminate 'viability' from MVP frameworks
“The viable is the word we gotta kill along with hope. Because viable is where hope comes from. Right? If it's viable, it might make it.”
Mark Pincus Jun 14, 2026 ▶ 35:07 The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more)
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