Product MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the simplest version of a product that can be released to early customers to validate a business idea with minimal resources. It includes only the core features necessary to solve a specific problem and gather feedback for future development.
Key characteristics:
- Has enough value that people are willing to use or buy it initially
- Demonstrates enough future benefit to retain early adopters
- Provides a feedback loop to guide future development
Building an MVP offers several critical advantages:
- Faster time to market: Get your product in front of users in weeks or months instead of years
- Lower development costs: Build only what's essential, saving time and money
- Early validation: Test your assumptions with real users before investing heavily
- Reduced risk: Fail fast and pivot if needed, rather than after spending years building
- Real user feedback: Learn what customers actually want, not what you think they want
- Iterative improvement: Build and improve based on data, not guesswork
Follow this prioritization framework:
- Identify the core problem: What single problem are you solving?
- Define the core value proposition: What makes your solution unique?
- List all possible features: Brainstorm everything you could build
- Use the MoSCoW method:
- Must have - Essential for MVP
- Should have - Important but not critical
- Could have - Nice to have
- Won't have - Not for MVP
- Test the "one feature" rule: Can you solve the problem with one core feature?
Remember: Your MVP should do one thing really well, not many things poorly.
No, they serve different purposes:
Prototype
- • Tests feasibility of an idea
- • Often throwaway code
- • May not be fully functional
- • Used internally or with limited users
- • Answers "Can we build it?"
MVP
- • Tests market viability
- • Production-ready code
- • Fully functional product
- • Released to real customers
- • Answers "Should we build it?"
The timeline varies based on complexity, but general guidelines:
- Simple web app: 4-8 weeks
- Mobile app: 6-12 weeks
- Marketplace/platform: 8-16 weeks
- Hardware product: 3-6 months
⚠️ Warning signs your MVP is too complex:
- It takes more than 3 months to build
- You need a large team
- You're building features "just in case"
Avoid these common pitfalls:
- Building too much: Including non-essential features
- Building too little: Creating something that doesn't solve the problem
- Not talking to users: Building in isolation without feedback
- Ignoring quality: "Minimum" doesn't mean broken or unusable
- No clear hypothesis: Not knowing what you're testing
- Wrong metrics: Tracking vanity metrics instead of actionable ones
- Premature scaling: Optimizing before proving product-market fit
- Feature creep: Adding "just one more thing" repeatedly
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Sports MVP (Most Valuable Player)
In sports, MVP stands for Most Valuable Player - an award given to the player who has made the greatest impact on their team's performance during a season, playoff, or championship game.
The MVP is typically recognized for:
- Outstanding individual performance
- Significant contribution to team success
- Leadership and influence on teammates
- Consistency throughout the season
- Impact in crucial moments
Selection varies by sport and league:
Voted by media panel (100 votes); based on stats, team record, and impact
Voted by 50 media members; emphasizes wins, stats, and leadership
Baseball Writers' Association votes; considers WAR, team success, traditional stats
Professional Hockey Writers' Association votes; Hart Trophy criteria
It's rare but possible, and varies by sport:
- Regular season MVP: Typically requires playoff contention or strong team record
- Game/Series MVP: Can be awarded to a player from the losing team (e.g., Jerry West in 1969 NBA Finals)
- Exception examples: Players with exceptional individual stats despite team struggles
Most leagues consider team success heavily in MVP voting, making it difficult for players on losing teams to win.
Different awards recognize different achievements:
- MVP: Overall most valuable player to their team
- Rookie of the Year: Best first-year player
- Defensive Player of the Year: Best defensive performance
- All-Star/Pro Bowl: Selected for exceptional season performance
- Championship/Finals MVP: Best player in championship series
- Coach of the Year: Most impactful coach
Framework MVP (Model-View-Presenter)
Model-View-Presenter (MVP) is a software architectural pattern derived from MVC (Model-View-Controller) that separates concerns in UI development:
The key difference: the View is completely passive and delegates all user interaction to the Presenter.
These patterns differ in how they handle communication:
- • View observes Model directly
- • Controller updates Model
- • One-to-many relationship possible
- • Used in: Ruby on Rails, Django
- • View is completely passive
- • Presenter mediates all communication
- • One-to-one View-Presenter relationship
- • Used in: Android apps, WinForms
- • Uses data binding
- • ViewModel exposes Model data
- • View binds directly to ViewModel
- • Used in: WPF, Angular, Vue.js
MVP is ideal when:
- Testing is a priority: Presenter can be unit tested without UI
- Complex UI logic: Need to separate presentation logic from view rendering
- No data binding: Platform doesn't support automatic data binding
- Multiple views: Same presenter logic can work with different views
- Android development: Well-suited for Android's architecture
Avoid MVP when:
- Simple UIs with minimal logic
- Platform has excellent data binding (use MVVM instead)
- Team unfamiliar with the pattern
Key advantages of the MVP pattern:
- Improved testability: Presenter logic can be unit tested without UI dependencies
- Separation of concerns: Clear boundaries between UI and business logic
- Code reusability: Same presenter can work with different view implementations
- Maintainability: Easier to modify and debug isolated components
- Parallel development: UI and logic can be developed simultaneously
- View independence: Can change UI without affecting business logic
Basic MVP implementation structure in Android:
- Define a Contract interface: Declares View and Presenter interfaces
- Create the View: Activity/Fragment implements View interface
- Create the Presenter: Plain Java/Kotlin class implements Presenter interface
- Connect them: View creates Presenter and passes itself as reference
// Contract
interface LoginContract {
interface View {
fun showProgress()
fun hideProgress()
fun showError(error: String)
}
interface Presenter {
fun login(email: String, password: String)
}
}General MVP Questions
MVP has three primary meanings depending on context:
In product development and startups - the simplest version of a product that can be released
In sports - an award for the player with the greatest impact
In software development - an architectural design pattern
Context clues help determine the meaning:
- Business/Startup context: Usually Minimum Viable Product
- Sports articles/broadcasts: Most Valuable Player
- Software development/coding: Model-View-Presenter
- Technical documentation: Could be either architecture pattern or product development
Keywords to watch for:
- Product MVP: "launch," "features," "users," "validation"
- Sports MVP: "season," "award," "player," "team"
- Framework MVP: "pattern," "architecture," "view," "presenter"
Yes, MVP has several other less common meanings:
- Microsoft Most Valuable Professional: Microsoft's community recognition program
- Mitral Valve Prolapse: A medical condition affecting the heart
- Most Valuable Performer: Entertainment industry award
- Minimum Viable Population: In conservation biology
- Multi-Vitamin Product: In health and nutrition
MVP became popular across multiple domains because:
- Memorable and short: Easy to say and remember
- Conveys importance: Implies value and significance in any context
- Lean startup movement: Popularized "Minimum Viable Product" in tech
- Sports culture: Long-standing tradition of MVP awards
- Software patterns: Natural evolution from MVC pattern
Each field independently adopted MVP for its meaningful implications in that domain.
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