A minimum viable product (MVP) helps product management teams validate ideas, reduce risk, and get new products to market faster. That can be a huge win if you operate in a crowded market or need to respond quickly to shifting customer needs.
In this guide, you’ll learn what an MVP is, why it matters, and how to build one step by step. We’ll also highlight some inspirational real-world examples and show you how monday dev can accelerate your MVP development.
Try monday devKey takeaways
- A minimum viable product (MVP) is the most basic, usable version of a product that solves a real problem for early adopters while teams validate assumptions and learn from real-world feedback.
- MVPs reduce risk and speed up time-to-market by focusing on a small set of essential features, running short build–measure–learn cycles, and aligning closely with Agile and lean principles.
- A viable MVP is designed for learning: it should validate clear hypotheses, generate measurable signals like sign-ups or retention, and inform whether to improve, pivot, or stop.
- Building an effective MVP means defining the problem, researching the market, mapping user journeys, prioritizing core features, and launching to collect structured qualitative and quantitative feedback.
- With monday dev, teams can plan, execute, and iterate on MVPs by centralizing workflows, feedback, and metrics in one place.
What is a minimum viable product?
A minimum viable product (MVP) is the most basic, usable version of a new product that delivers enough value to early adopters while you test your idea in the real world and learn from their feedback. In business and product management, teams launch an MVP to validate assumptions, reduce risk, and gather insights before investing in a fully featured product.
The concept of an MVP comes from the Lean Startup methodology, which encourages learning and building with scalability in mind. According to its author, Eric Ries, an MVP is the version of a new product that allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least amount of effort.
Understanding the MVP definition
A minimum viable product is not a half-baked or broken prototype that you rush to market just to say you shipped something. It is a fully usable, reliable version of your product that solves a real problem, with only the essential features, so that real customers can try it in real conditions.
The main goal of an MVP is learning, not just launching. You build it to test your riskiest assumptions, gather feedback, and decide what to improve, pivot, or discard before investing in a full release.
Without validated learning, development stalls or teams make decisions based on what-if scenarios that may not play out in the real world. But with valid feedback, teams can work toward a final product or future upgrades for the product.
Why build an MVP?
A minimum viable product helps de‑risk investment by testing your idea with real users before you commit significant time, budget, and engineering resources. By validating demand and learning what actually works, you avoid overbuilding features customers don’t need.
Focusing on an MVP also gets you to market faster, because you prioritize only the core features needed to deliver value and collect feedback. This shorter cycle lets teams iterate quickly, respond to insights, and stay ahead of competitors.
MVPs align naturally with Agile and lean principles, which emphasize small, iterative releases and continuous learning. Instead of planning a big-bang launch, you deliver a lean first version, measure how users respond, and adjust your roadmap sprint by sprint.
What makes an MVP viable?
A minimum viable product has just enough features for real users to solve a specific problem, end-to-end, without workarounds or manual fixes behind the scenes. It may be minimal, but it must still be reliable, usable, and valuable enough that people are willing to try it and give honest feedback.
What makes an MVP truly viable is the learning it enables. It should validate clear hypotheses, generate measurable signals (like sign-ups, activation, or retention), and guide decisions about what to build next — or whether to pivot.
MVP vs. Agile vs. Waterfall
Agile and Waterfall are development methodologies, while a minimum viable product (MVP) is an outcome you can deliver using either approach. Agile teams typically release an MVP early, then iterate in short sprints based on feedback, whereas Waterfall teams might define and build an MVP as a single phase within a larger, linear plan.
In Agile and lean environments, MVPs are a natural fit because they support continuous learning, experimentation, and incremental delivery. In more traditional or hybrid setups, an MVP still helps de‑risk big projects by validating assumptions with a smaller, clearly scoped release before scaling to a full product.
5 steps to build a minimum viable product
Follow these steps to ensure your MVP solves a specific problem for a defined target audience while minimizing the time and resources spent on non-essential features.
- Define the problem: Clearly identify the problem or pain points the product aims to solve and the benefits it will provide.
- Conduct market research: Gather information about the target market and your main competitors, and calculate the market size. The more information you have, the more likely you are to succeed.
- Map out user journeys: Understand how users will interact with the product. Consider creating a prototype to help users visualize a working solution before building the MVP.
- Prioritize the features: Define the essential features the MVP must have to address the identified problem. For example, consider using the MoSCoW prioritization method to define the “must-have,” “should-have,” “could-have,” and “won’t-have (this time)” features.
- Build, measure, learn (BML): Develop the MVP, release it to users, measure their interactions, and learn from their feedback.
Successful MVP examples
Looking for inspiration with your product development? Check out some successful real-life MVP examples from the companies below.
Amazon
Jeff Bezos started Amazon with a vision of creating an online store that sold everything. But to test the water, he built his MVP with a single product category: books. Back in the 1990s, the mega-retailer only sold books, and it didn’t even have a warehouse to pull them from. Bezos bought the books from a distributor and shipped them to the customer each time they placed an order.
That minimum viable product worked. People loved accessing almost any book they might want — often at a discount. Bezos used the proceeds and user feedback from his initial MVP to gradually add more categories, services, and functionality, like allowing distributors to list their own books, making payments more secure, and enabling buyer and seller feedback.
Groupon
Did you know that Groupon didn’t even start with its own content management system? The founders used WordPress to get their MVP to market as quickly as possible and only built out the site you know as Groupon once they saw some success.
Today, Groupon dabbles in deals for local retailers, hospitality companies, and entertainment options, but it also offers ways to save on national opportunities and e-commerce. It’s come a long way from an MVP niche site only the savviest savers knew about to becoming a household name.
The MVP version of Facebook — or “Thefacebook” as it was called — was super basic. Profiles didn’t allow much information, and people couldn’t share videos or images. It simply connected students via their college or class and let them post messages to their boards.
However, the idea was sound, and the MVP adopted by Harvard University students provided plenty of validated learning. That let the founders move forward with the social media platform, working through multiple development cycles and beta testing rounds to eventually make history with a game-changing social media app.
Spotify
Spotify launched to Swedish music bloggers, who beta-tested the MVP version and helped market it to the rest of the world at the right time. The original Spotify only worked on desktops, didn’t have a freemium version, and didn’t let users create playlists or share songs. It lacked many features you might know and love today, but the minimum viable product was enough to deliver a great experience for people hungry for a way to stream more music.
iPhone
The original iPhone launched in 2007 with limited Apple apps and no way for customers to download other functionality. It didn’t even have all the functions other phones had at the time, and early adopters didn’t consider it a flawless product.
They did, however, consider it revolutionary. Apple used the iPhone’s first iteration to determine whether consumers would adopt an on-screen keyboard, wanted browser capability on a mobile device, and carry a single device for all purposes. The answers it got are now evident, as the iPhone model became the foundation for almost all future smartphones.
Remember: your MVP might not be the next iPhone or Facebook, but it could be a significant step in the right direction for your product or business. To make the most of the MVP method and develop a product strategy that works, you need a way for your team to work together rapidly, starting with excellent product management software.
Common MVP mistakes to avoid
Many MVPs fail not because the idea is bad, but because teams misunderstand what “minimum viable product” really means and fall into a few avoidable traps. Here are some common mistakes to avoid when building your minimum viable product.
Overloading the MVP with features
One common mistake is treating an MVP like a smaller version of the final product and overloading it with features. This slows down development, inflates costs, and makes it harder to see which features actually create value for users.
Shipping something “minimum” but not viable
Teams also sometimes go too far in the other direction and focus on “minimum” more than “viable,” shipping something buggy or incomplete that damages trust. An MVP still needs to solve a real problem end-to-end, even if the experience is simple and rough around the edges.
Skipping user and market research
Skipping user and market research is another major pitfall. If you build an MVP without understanding your target audience, their needs, and competing solutions, you risk validating the wrong idea and wasting your learning cycles.
Ignoring feedback and clear success metrics
A final mistake is ignoring feedback and clear success metrics after launch. An MVP should be tied to specific hypotheses and KPIs — such as activation, retention, or sign‑ups — so you can decide objectively whether to iterate, pivot, or stop.
Measuring MVP success
Measuring MVP success is about proving or disproving your assumptions with real data, not just shipping a first version and hoping it works. Here are 3 ways to measure your MVP success.
1. Define success upfront
Decide what “good” looks like before you ship your MVP. For example, validating a specific problem, hitting a target number of sign‑ups, or seeing most users complete the core action at least once. Clear goals and thresholds make it much easier to decide whether to iterate, pivot, or stop.
2. Track outcome-focused KPIs
Focus on a small set of MVP success metrics that reflect real user value, not vanity numbers. Common KPIs include:
- Activation — do users complete the key action?
- Retention — do they come back?
- Conversion — do they sign up or pay?
- Engagement — how often they use core features.
3. Combine quantitative and qualitative feedback
Pair your metrics with user interviews, surveys, and in‑product feedback prompts to understand the “why” behind the numbers. This mix helps each iteration of your MVP move you closer to product‑market fit, rather than just improving surface-level usage stats.
Scaling from MVP to full product
Once your MVP proves there is real demand, the goal shifts from “Does this idea work?” to “How do we turn this into a reliable, scalable product?” That means expanding features and polishing UX, plus strengthening your architecture, processes, and team so growth doesn’t break what already works.
Use feedback to drive your roadmap
Prioritize features based on what MVP users actually request, where they drop off, and which use cases generate the most value. This helps you avoid building a bloated product and instead grow around the features your best customers really care about.
Invest in scalability and quality
As you move beyond MVP, refactor fragile parts of the codebase, harden security, and improve performance so the product can support more users and higher stakes. This often includes better monitoring, automated testing, and more robust infrastructure.
Evolve your processes and team
Scaling from MVP usually requires clearer ownership, more structured workflows, and cross‑functional collaboration between product, engineering, design, and go‑to‑market teams. Align everyone around a shared product vision and a roadmap that balances new features with technical debt and stability work.
Accelerate MVP development with monday dev
MVPs work best when you treat them as learning vehicles, not just smaller versions of a final product. Built on monday.com Work OS, monday dev allows product and engineering teams to manage the entire product lifecycle, from MVP to final release, with flexible workflows, connected data, and clear alignment to business goals.
Custom workflows
Teams can design workflows that fit how they actually build MVPs — whether they use Agile, Scrum, Kanban, a hybrid model, or a custom process — so they can move quickly instead of fighting a rigid tool.
Cross-department visibility
Product, engineering, design, marketing, and leadership can all see the same MVP roadmap, backlog, and feedback in one place, reducing misalignment and keeping everyone focused on the same outcomes.
Actionable insights
Dashboards and portfolio views give managers and leaders a clear view of MVP progress, delivery speed, and risks, so they can intervene early, remove blockers, and keep teams focused on the right work without micromanaging.
AI support
Built-in AI capabilities help teams spot bottlenecks, summarize feedback, and forecast delivery, enabling them to refine their MVP roadmap with data rather than guesswork. For example, they can automatically flag at‑risk items on their MVP board or surface patterns in user feedback before planning the next iteration.
Seamless integrations across your stack
By connecting monday dev to tools for design, source control, issue tracking, and communication, MVP teams can keep specs, code, and feedback in sync without constant copy‑paste. This helps them move faster, reduce manual work, and maintain a single source of truth as they iterate on their MVP.
Try monday dev free for 14 days to see how you can plan sprints, capture user feedback, and iterate on your MVP in one place.
Try monday devFAQs
What is the difference between PoC and MVP?
A proof of concept (PoC) tests whether an idea or technology is technically feasible, usually in a controlled, internal environment. A minimum viable product (MVP) is a usable, market-ready version with just enough core features to put in front of real customers and validate demand, usability, and value.
How long should MVP development take?
Most MVPs take a few weeks to a few months to build, depending on complexity, team size, and scope. For many digital products, a typical target is around two to six months from discovery to launch, with a strong focus on shipping quickly and iterating based on feedback rather than perfecting every detail.
Can you have multiple MVPs?
Yes, you can have multiple MVPs if you are testing different segments, value propositions, or solution approaches. Some teams run several small MVPs in parallel to compare which idea resonates most, then double down on the winner and retire the rest. In larger products, you might also treat major new modules as their own MVP-style experiments.
What percentage of features should an MVP include?
There is no fixed percentage, but an MVP should only include the small set of must-have features required to solve the core problem and test your main hypotheses. Teams aim for roughly three to five core capabilities, leaving nice-to-have or differentiating features for later iterations once they understand what users actually value.
Is MVP the same as a beta version?
No, an MVP and a beta version serve different purposes and appear at different stages. An MVP comes first and validates whether the product solves a real problem for a real market, while a beta version is a more complete product released to a limited audience to polish quality, performance, and user experience before a wider launch.
How much does it cost to build an MVP?
MVP costs vary widely based on scope, platform, and team location, but many sources cite ranges from tens of thousands to low hundreds of thousands of dollars for commercial web or mobile products. Simple MVPs with a focused feature set and a small team can sit at the lower end, while complex, integrated, or highly regulated solutions land much higher.
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