What is a minimum viable product?

A minimum viable product, or MVP for short, is based on the lean start-up method and describes a product that is launched on the market with only the most necessary core functions as soon as it is functional.

On the one hand, this is intended to keep costs as low as possible and, on the other, it allows customer feedback to be incorporated into the development of a new version as early as possible.

This saves time, money and work, allows gaps in the market to be tested with little development effort and also creates the basis for other products.

One example of an MVP is the well-known file hosting service Dropbox. This company published a video explaining its idea before it even launched the actual software solution on the market.