Definition: Minimum Viable Product or MVP is a development technique in which a new product is introduced in the market with basic features, but enough to get the attention of the consumers. The final product is released in the market only after getting sufficient feedback from the product's initial users.
Description: Minimum Viable Product or MVP is the most basic version of the product which the company wants to launch in the market. It could be a car, website, TV, or a laptop. By introducing the basic version to the consumers, companies want to gauge the response from prospective consumers or buyers.
This technique helps them in making the final product much better. With the help of MVP concept, the research or the marketing team will come to know where the product is lacking and or what are its strengths or weaknesses.
MVP has three distinct features. One is that it will have enough features for consumers to purchase the product (it becomes easier for the company to market it), the other is that it will have some sort of a feedback mechanism wherein users would be able to send their feedback about the product. And, lastly it should have enough future benefits for consumers who to adopt the product first (Google gave free upgrade of its OS to all Nexus users).
The idea is to get feedback from the consumers which will in turn help in making the desired changes in the final product. MVP actually tests the usage scenario rather that is much for more helpful for the company to make changes to the final product.
Let's understand the concept with the help of an example. MVP is a popular concept in the online space, where a website is launched with basic features to find out how consumers respond to the product displayed on the website.
It could be a consumable product, daily use product or even a service provided by a website provider. The idea is to start small and then take cues from the users as to what exactly are they expecting from the product.
Some of the noted examples are Dropbox, Groupon, Zappos, etc.
