Disciplined Entrepreneurship Workbook

STEP 22Define the Minimum Viable Business Product (MVBP)

WHAT IS STEP 22, DEFINE THE MINIMUM VIABLE BUSINESS PRODUCT (MVBP)?

Determine what is the minimum product you can use to test whether your end user gets value from your product and whether the economic buyer is willing to pay.

WHY DO WE DO THIS STEP, AND WHY DO WE DO IT NOW?

Once you ship a product, the stakes become much higher, but the quality of feedback becomes much, much better, too—in particular, feedback about whether customers are willing to pay you for your product. But to reduce the stakes, complexity, and investment, you don’t want to build out the entire product now. Keep the number of variables as low as possible by first developing a minimum product that starts an iterative feedback loop with your customers. All of the work from the previous steps builds up to this moment.

By the Book: See pages 235–237 of Disciplined Entrepreneurship for basic knowledge on this step.

See page 238–244 of Disciplined Entrepreneurship for examples of how different companies and teams have addressed this step.

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.

PROCESS GUIDE

To create an MVBP, your goal is to do the least amount of work possible to achieve three key objectives:

1. The customer gets value out of your product—that is, you validate ...