STEP 22Define the Minimum Viable Business Product (MVBP)

A diagrammatic representation of the chart represents number twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty three. Number twenty two is highlighted.

In This Step, You Will:

  • Determine what is the minimum product you need to build to test whether your end user gets value from your product.
  • Determine whether the economic buyer is willing to pay for your product.
  • Start the feedback loop with your customers to improve your product over time.
A diagrammatic representation of men and women checking frogs. It mentions women holding an igloo-like thing labelled M V B P. It mentions no customer validation and running out of money.

It's time! You have done all your homework, so now you have to give your customer a product. But keep it simple to start.

Why This Step, and Why Now?

The previous two steps focused on testing individual assumptions. In this step and the next, you will develop and test them integrated together. To do this you will create a Minimum Viable Business Product (MVBP). The MVBP combines your most important key individual assumptions into one simple but complete product that can be sold. This will be your all‐important starting point that you will build off of in Step 24 to grow a bigger business.

Let's Get Started

Once you ship a product, the stakes become much higher, but the quality of feedback becomes much, much better, too. As such, now you have done all you can to test before building, so now you will pivot to building a product and getting feedback from it. Words and surveys only get you so far. Now you will get concrete feedback ...

Get Disciplined Entrepreneurship, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial