The Minimum Viable Testing Process for Evaluating Startup Ideas

“An MVP is a process that you repeat over and over again: identify your riskiest assumption, find the smallest possible experiment to test that assumption, and use the results of the experiment to course correct.”

of that process, called Minimum Viable Product, which involves starting with a small idea and then testing it relentlessly with small focus groups until it becomes the best version of itself (or, conversely, it gets killed because it doesn’t actually have that much potential).

We tell entrepreneurs to find a need, test, and trial until they find a solution to that need, move fast, and break things. Yes, betas work; our method is a process of induction, right out of the playbook of the scientific method. Yet we need to insert a framework of intentionality into that process so that at the end of our experiments, we have a

buzzwords of the moment call for building a “lean startup” that can “adapt” and “evolve” to an ever-changing environment. Would-be entrepreneurs are told that nothing can be known in advance: we’re supposed to listen to what customers say they want, make nothing more than a “minimum viable product,” and iterate our way to success. But leanness is a

The answer is to test the waters with an MVP. Take your product idea and shave it down until it is just one dedicated tool that you can build in a few weeks – a tool that solves a specific problem. Build just that product, promote it, and gather feedback. Then you’ll have real data to decide on your next course of action. This is the same path that