What is an MVP and why should your first app be one?

Strategy · 6 min read

MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. It's the simplest, most stripped-back version of your app that still solves the core problem you set out to solve. Nothing extra. Nothing fancy. Just the essential thing, done well.

That sounds easy, but it's not. Most people struggle with it because they've been thinking about their app for so long that it's grown in their head. It started as one thing and now it's got fifteen features, three user types, a social feed, and a subscription model. The MVP conversation is about cutting all of that back to the bone and asking: what's the one thing this app actually needs to do?

The 5 Whys

The best way to find your MVP is to keep asking why. Not once, five times. Each "why" peels back a layer until you hit the real problem you're solving. Let me walk through an example.

Say you want to build an app that scans sunglasses to identify what model and make they are. You take a photo, the app tells you exactly which pair they are, and then it educates you on different lens options so you can make a better purchase decision.

Sounds cool. But let's dig in.

Why do you want to build this?
Because there are thousands of sunglasses out there and it's nearly impossible to identify a specific pair just by looking at them. You see someone wearing a great pair, you want to know what they are, but you can't always ask, and even if you do, most people don't know the exact model.

Why is that a problem?
Because without knowing the model, you can't find them. You end up scrolling through hundreds of options on a website trying to match what you saw, and you never quite find the right ones. It wastes time and you usually give up or settle for something close but not quite right.

Why can't people just search for them normally?
Because manufacturers describe sunglasses in technical terms, lens width, bridge size, temple length, that mean nothing to a regular person. And the shape names aren't standardised. One brand's "aviator" looks completely different from another's. There's no common language between what you see on someone's face and what you find in a store.

Why hasn't anyone solved this already?
Some have tried, but the experience is clunky. You end up on a website filling in filters that don't match how you actually think about sunglasses. The technology to do visual recognition well on a phone has only recently become good enough to be reliable. And no one's combined the identification with personalised recommendations based on your face shape and preferences in a way that actually feels simple.

Why does it need to be simple?
Because the moment of inspiration is fleeting. You see a pair you like, you want to know what they are right now, not after downloading an app, creating an account, and filling in a profile. The value is in the speed. Scan, identify, done. Everything else is secondary.

And there's your MVP. It's the scan. It's "point your phone at a pair of sunglasses and find out what they are." That's the core. The lens education, the face shape matching, the purchase recommendations, all of that can come later. But if the scan doesn't work fast and accurately, none of the rest matters.

Why launching small is the smartest move

Your MVP isn't a prototype, and it's not a half-baked app. It's a focused app. It does one thing really well, and it gets into people's hands so you can learn from how they actually use it.

Because here's what happens every time: the features you thought were essential turn out to be unused, and the thing users actually love is something you almost didn't include. You can't predict that from your desk. You can only learn it by launching.

An MVP also keeps your costs down. Design is a fixed scope, but development costs scale with complexity. Every extra feature is more screens, more logic, more testing, more time. If you launch with ten core screens instead of fifty, you get to market faster, spend less, and learn more.

Then you iterate. You add features based on what real users tell you they need, not what you assumed they'd need. That's how successful apps are built. Not in one big bang, but in cycles of launch, learn, improve. As Steve Blank wrote in Harvard Business Review, the lean approach "greatly reduces the chances that start-ups will spend a lot of time and money launching products that no one actually will pay for."

Be honest with yourself

This is the hard part. You've been thinking about your app for a long time. You've imagined the full vision, every feature, every screen, every detail. And now someone's telling you to cut most of it.

It doesn't mean those ideas are bad. It means they're not first. The MVP is about sequencing, not sacrificing. Build the core, prove it works, then build the rest on solid ground.

If you're struggling to figure out what your MVP actually is, that's normal. It's one of the first things we work through together in the discovery phase. Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to see which parts are essential and which parts are "nice to have later."

Sources
Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything (Steve Blank, Harvard Business Review, 2013) - The lean approach reduces the chances of spending time and money building products nobody actually wants to pay for.

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