[Michael_K]

You have to think about your MVP as a serious effort to validate or disprove your thesis and assumptions. An MVP does not have to be code, it does not have to be a prototype of your real app. You can duck tape anything together (video, screen cast, screen shots, photo shop images...) to try to prove/disprove your thesis. Here a quick example. Let's say you want to build a new way of searching for hotels. The first question you ask yourself, is what is it that will make people come and use my product/site (instead of expedia or hotels.com)? What is the value that I am adding? So you come up with your 2 or 3 true, core value adds that you think build the foundation of why people will love your product. Now you go ahead and verify if you are right, if these 2-3 value adds really are enough to have people come and use your product (if there is a market for it). So you identify a place on the web where your target audience hangs out and you put your MVP (whatever form/shape it has) in front of them. Drew Houston from Dropbox just showed people a video that was fake (the real product did not work yet and was not really build) to measure how many people would like it and the response was amazing.

For reference check out: http://www.quora.com/How-did-Dropbox-reach-its-first-100-100... and: http://vimeo.com/16091659 Drew is very inspiring.