Teams often plan an MVP by taking the full feature list and cutting it in half. The result is a slower, weaker product that still doesn't answer the most important question.
Find the riskiest assumption
Ask: what must be true for this product to succeed? Usually it's that a specific group of people has a specific problem and will change their behavior to solve it. Your MVP exists to test that.
- One core user group
- One core job they need done
- The shortest path to completing that job
- A way to measure whether they came back
What to leave out
Settings pages, complex permissions, multiple themes and admin dashboards can almost always wait. Do things manually behind the scenes until you know they are worth automating.
If you're not slightly embarrassed by your first release, you probably launched too late.
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