[TillE]

A minimum viable product is something that customers can actually use. Something that you can sell, that people are willing to pay money for.

This?

> We did everything possible to not show that we hadn't even started the back-end yet.

Is testing marketing and UI design. Which is great. But it's not an MVP.

[jasoncrawford]

The term "MVP" has expanded to cover things that are not strictly products. E.g., Eric Ries refers to a demo video as the "Dropbox MVP" because of the way Dropbox used it successfully to generate demand: http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/19/dropbox-minimal-viable-prod...

Rather than reject techniques like this because they're not technically products, I think we should expand the concept of MVP to include things like this because they serve the same purpose: learning about your market, reducing risk, validating ideas.

[aoporto]

I think this can still be considered an intermediate MVP that can be tested. The goal of lean is to eliminate waste, so there is a risk that an MVP with working code has no demand whatsoever.

One drawback to this approach is that it may give you false negatives. What if you landing page copy doesn't work or your AdWords copy is wrong? As with all lean/custdev hacks ymmv. Bottom line is you need to find customers to talk to, otherwise everything is an assumption.

Some other articles that touch on this approach:

http://startupbound.com/how-i-quickly-test-and-validate-star...

http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/11/using-adwords-t...

http://www.cindyalvarez.com/best-practices/customer-developm...

[BerislavLopac]

There is no "intermediate" MVP, it's a contradiction in terms. It's either minimum AND viable, or it's not.

[noodle]

i don't disagree that there's value in using this stuff. a lot of value. but doing only this is not an MVP. "P" = product, something you're selling, something people are using.

there should be another name for this. MVI maybe? minimum viable idea?

[coreymaass]

While talking with Bob Walsh on the Startup Success podcast a couple weeks ago, he came up with "Minimal Viable Experience" which I think applies well here: http://startupsuccesspodcast.com/2011/11/show-124-corey-maas...

[betterth]

Wikipedia's article on mvp (I know, I know), includes this:

>The canonical MVP strategy for a web application is to create a mock website for the product and purchase online advertising to direct traffic to the site. The mock website may consist of a marketing landing page with a link for more information or purchase. The link is not connected to a purchasing system, instead clicks are recorded and measure customer interest.

from: [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product#Techniqu...)

That seems to directly contradict the implication of 'mvp' that you're using, which is that it MUST be a viable product that customers can use.

EDIT: The best part of markdown is when it isn't supported, the code is very readable. I say leave it!

[noodle]

the wikipedia article seems to me to be referring to an MVP more as a process, and the smoke testing by creating mock websites as one part of that process.

i can agree with that, on some level, but i still feel that to have a complete MVP (process), you necessarily have to have a P at the end of it.

[donpark]

Not even that in my book. It's hoodwinking that could potentially hurt existing businesses as well as creating an atmosphere of distrust if practiced widely.

[prawn]

Nor a new approach.