# Minimum Viable Product - Lessons for Software Teams

DevFeed: [Minimum Viable Product - Lessons for Software Teams](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/minimum-viable-product-lessons-for-software-teams-24941.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://codeahoy.com/2016/05/07/minimum-viable-product-lessons-for-software-teams/>)

Author: umer

Published: 2016-05-07T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Code Ahoy - Articles](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/code-ahoy-articles.md>)

Topics: [Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/development.md>), [Continuous Delivery (CD)](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/continuous-delivery.md>), [Testing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/testing.md>)

Tags: [article](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/article.md>), [continuous-delivery](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/continuous-delivery.md>), [developers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developers.md>), [development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/development.md>), [testing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/testing.md>)

## AI overview

The article explains minimum viable product (MVP) as a way for software teams to test customer demand and assumptions with limited effort. It uses Zappos as an example and distinguishes MVP from continuous delivery and incremental development.

## Source excerpt

The concept of the minimum viable product or the MVP was popularized by Eric Reis in his book The Lean Startup. He defines it as: The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. Startups fail for many reasons but one of the biggest reasons is that they build products that their customers do not want. By that time, it's too late. They have already spent months or even years of their lives building a great product - a grand vision - that the market isn't, unfortunately, willing to purchase. MVP is a strategy to avoid exactly that scenario: building something that the customers do not want. Eric cites the story of Zappos. They didn't start out with a grand vision of building a cool website, distribution and call centers. Nope. Zappos started by testing a simple hypothesis: are customers willing to buy shoes online? They went to local shoe store, took pictures of each of their products and put them online. If anyone bought shoes from them [at this early stage], they planned to go to the store, buy the shoes and mail them to the customer. There was no big business behind it; there was a website and a hope that they'll get so many orders that it will get annoying to do all the purchasing and shipping manually. It was all to test their big idea. MVP is a great way to test the actual usage and assumptions as opposed to conventional market research that includes researching online, surveys etc. which often provide misleading results. Software teams can learn a lot from MVP and apply it to build products that meet their client needs. When I first heard of MVP, I thought of it as a rebranding of 'Continuous Delivery (CD)' which, along with the practices of incremental and iterative development, has been around for a long time. But there is a huge difference and it lies in how software developers understand and perceive these concepts. This article captures