--- title: Minimum Viable Product (MVP) — definition | RGM® url: https://realgrowthmatters.com/glossary/minimum-viable-product/ updated: 2026-06-10 source_html: https://realgrowthmatters.com/glossary/minimum-viable-product/ --- # Minimum Viable Product (MVP) min·i·mum vi·a·ble prod·uct/ˈmɪnəməm ˈvaɪəbəl ˈpɹɑdəkt/noun Minimum and viable — the industry keeps the first word and forgets the second. Term : Minimum Viable Product Coined : Frank Robinson (2001) Popularized : Eric Ries, The Lean Startup (2011) Famous probes : Dropbox's video, Zappos' photos, concierge MVPs ## Forms & parts of speech concierge MVP · noun phrase (the manual variant) Humans faking the product. "Run it as a **concierge MVP** — fulfill the first 30 orders by hand and learn before building." ## Definition in plain terms A minimum viable product is the smallest version of a product that generates VALIDATED LEARNING about customers — enough product to test the riskiest assumption, no more. Frank Robinson coined the term (2001); Eric Ries's *The Lean Startup* made it doctrine. The canon probes show the range: Dropbox's demo VIDEO (testing demand before engineering), Zappos' founder photographing shoe-store stock (testing willingness to buy shoes online), concierge MVPs where humans manually deliver what software will later automate. ## The mechanics The discipline lives in three choices: the ASSUMPTION (what, if false, kills the business — test that first, not the easy thing), the INSTRUMENT (the smallest probe that tests it — sometimes a landing page, sometimes a manual service, rarely a coded product), and the METRIC (decided before launch — what result means persevere versus pivot). The abuse pattern Ries himself battles: MVP as excuse for shipping junk to paying customers. Viable means it must actually deliver the core value to its test audience — minimum bounds the SCOPE, not the quality. Marketing's parallel discipline: minimum viable CAMPAIGNS test messaging and channels with the same probe logic before budgets scale. ## When it matters MVP thinking matters at every uncertainty frontier: new products, new segments, new channels — anywhere conviction outruns evidence. The test for whether yours is real: is there a named assumption, a pre-committed metric, and a decision the result will change? Without those three, it's not an MVP — it's a small launch wearing the vocabulary. **Worked example.** A founder plans nine months building a meal-planning app. The MVP discipline finds the riskiest assumption first — will busy parents pay for planning at all? The probe: a landing page selling a $9/month 'service' that's actually the founder emailing weekly plans built by hand (concierge MVP), capped at 50 customers. Three weeks later: 41 paying subscribers, two pricing complaints, and a pattern in the requests (allergies dominate). The app that eventually gets built is allergy-first — nine months of guessing, replaced by three weeks of evidence at the cost of some hand-built PDFs. **Failure modes to watch.** Shipping junk to paying customers and calling it an MVP; testing the easy assumption instead of the killer one; launching probes without pre-committed metrics; and building software where a concierge weekend would answer the question. ## Synonyms & antonyms ### Synonyms MVPminimum viable product ### Antonyms polished v1 (the other extreme)minimum sellable junk (the abuse) ## Origin & history Coined by product consultant Frank Robinson of SyncDev in 2001 — defining the MVP as the product with the highest return on risk for both vendor and customer; Steve Blank's customer-development circle adopted it, and Eric Ries's *The Lean Startup* (2011) made it the era's most used — and abused — three letters. Etymology: [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product). ## Usage trends Search interest for this term over the last five years: [View interest-over-time on Google Trends →](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=minimum%20viable%20product&date=today%205-y) ## Common questions What is an MVP? : The smallest product version that generates validated learning about customers — a probe for evidence, scoped minimal but genuinely viable. Who coined MVP? : Frank Robinson in 2001; Eric Ries popularized it through The Lean Startup. What makes a real MVP? : A named riskiest assumption, a pre-committed metric, and a decision the result will change. ## Related tools & calculators - tool[Funnel drop-off analyzer](/tools/funnel-drop-off-analyzer/) ## Resources & people to follow - book*The Lean Startup* — Ries - referenceFrank Robinson — the 2001 coinage (SyncDev) - book*The Mom Test* — the interview companion Curated, non-competitor resources verified per term. ## Related training - module[Growth marketing foundations](/training/growth-marketing-foundations/) ## Disciplines Areas of marketing where minimum viable product (mvp) is a core concern: [Growth strategy](/training/growth-marketing-foundations/)[Fundamentals](/training/growth-marketing-foundations/) ## Read next ## Related terms [The Lean Startup (book)](/glossary/the-lean-startup/)[Eric Ries](/glossary/eric-ries/)[Product-market fit](/glossary/product-market-fit/)[Lean Canvas](/glossary/lean-canvas/)[The Mom Test (book)](/glossary/the-mom-test/) ## Sources 1. trends[Google Trends — "minimum viable product"](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=minimum%20viable%20product&date=today%205-y)