The concept of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is one of the most important principles in product management and software development. Many people tend to only define it as the first version of a product launched by a company to serve its customers. However, the MVP is more than just that—it carries a larger and more meaningful purpose.

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One of the best definitions of an MVP, in my opinion, comes from Marty Cagan. He describes it as the smallest possible product you can build and deliver and that your users are willing to buy and can actually use.

It can be summed up as the smallest Valuable, Usable, and feasible product you can build.

In essence, the MVP is your trusted way of validating product-market fit, but it won’t serve its true purpose if it doesn’t meet these three essential criteria.

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Why do we build MVPs ?

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Building a product, whether in a startup or an existing company, is like planting a seed and nurturing it. Instead of planting a whole field, you start by testing in a small, controlled space. You want to see if the seed will grow before you commit to planting an entire crop. In the same way, you validate your ideas with minimal investment to see if there’s enough demand or potential before scaling up.

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Here’s an overview of the most important benefits of building MVPs:

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1. Testing the hypothesis

Once you’ve planted the seed, you need to check if it’s actually growing. With your MVP, you gather feedback to see if it’s working as expected—this feedback helps you decide whether to keep going or change direction.

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2. Learn about the customer

The MVP allows you to observe how the “seed” interacts with its environment. Do customers engage with your product? Is it addressing their real problems? Are they willing to pay to use your product?

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3. Save time and ressources

Instead of planting an entire field (building a fully developed product), starting with one seed (MVP) minimizes waste. You focus only on what’s essential to see if there’s potential, saving effort and resources for later stages.

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4. Achieve Product-Market Fit Faster

Testing one seed in the right conditions helps you learn quickly whether it will grow. Similarly, an MVP lets you determine if there’s enough demand and alignment between your product and market needs, accelerating your path to product-market fit.

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5. Iterate quickly

If the first seed doesn’t grow, you try adjusting the soil, water, or sunlight (features, messaging, or audience). Quickly refine you MVP until it starts thriving.

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6. Pivot when necessary

The MVP also enables you to make quick strategic decisions. If it doesn’t succeed, you can pivot by changing direction—just as you would try a different location, soil, or seed type if a plant doesn’t thrive.

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How do we build an MVP?

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One of the most effective methodologies for building an MVP is outlined in The Lean Startup book. It emphasizes iterating through the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop.

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Here’s how to implement it:

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1. Define your hypothesis

What problem are you solving ? What solution are you bringing to the table ? Who is going to pay for your solution ? etc.

Before you can clearly define what you’re going to build, it’s essential to ask yourself these right questions.

Frameworks like the Value Proposition Canvas can be incredibly helpful at this stage. Your value proposition will serve as your guiding compass, and you’ll refine it as your product evolves.

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2. Build the MVP

What are the core features required to test your value proposition and generate revenue?

Identify these essentials and break them down into user stories. Design, develop, and test these features while continuously delivering of iterations to gather valuable user feedback.

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3. Test and Measure impacts

Launch your MVP to a small group of users. Don’t use your friends and family to achieve that. You would want a group of test that will tell you what’s wrong with your product, also that will truly need to use your product. Once you have this small group of users, start collecting data and measure data correlated directly to your value proposition.

For example : If your value proposition is about speed, then you’ll need to track delivery time and customer satisfaction.

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4. Analyze and learn

Launch your MVP to a group of users who genuinely need your product. Avoid friends and family for testing, they likely won’t provide you objective feedback. Instead, focus on bringing users who will truly choose to engage (or not) with your product.

Once you have this group in place, start collecting data and tracking metrics that align directly with your value proposition.

For instance, if your value proposition is about speed, monitor metrics such as delivery time and customer satisfaction.

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5. Iterate until you have product market-fit

Keep iterating through the Build-Measure-Learn cycle until you achieve product-market fit.

Don’t hesitate to pivot when it’s clear your product isn’t meeting expectations.

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I’ll explore each of these steps in detail in separate articles to offer more context.

Lessons learned from building my first MVP: How no-Code and low-Code tools helped us pivot

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Like many, I didn’t start my career in product management. At the startup where I worked, I began as a Sales Trader. But one day, the CEO took a chance on me and asked me to step into a product management role. I jumped at the opportunity, eager to prove myself and make an impact.

The product I was responsible for was struggling. We had an ambitious goal: to build the “Alibaba for Africa” and revolutionize B2B trade across the continent, but the challenges were significant.  High banking fees, complex regulations, and a lack of trust between suppliers, buyers, and middlemen made it extremely difficult to scale.

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We were running out of money. It was clear that we needed to act fast, make tough decisions, and find a way forward. We began exploring a pivot, and the path became obvious: we needed to get closer to the customer by removing the barriers that stood between us and them.

That’s when the idea emerged—to pivot to a B2B ordering app. The vision was to offer retailers a wide selection of products with guaranteed delivery within 24 hours. We had the business expertise and supplier relationships to make it work, but there was a major gap: we didn’t yet have the app to take orders or the platform to manage the operations.

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The idea of using no-code tools quickly came to mind. Having been in the same YC 2017 batch as Retool, they were the first platform we thought of. Retool was built to help teams rapidly create internal tools and automate operations—precisely what we needed to streamline our processes with our small team.

At the same time, we developed an e-commerce website using wordpress that allowed customers to place orders.

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We quickly began to see the impact as orders started increasing, and customer retention was strong. It became clear that we had found our product-market fit.

With this validation, we then focused our resources on building a robust product stack to support the scaling demands of the business.

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The rest, as they say, is history. But I’ll share more about that journey in another article.