MVP (minimum viable product)
The smallest version of your product that real users can put to work, built to test whether the idea holds before you pay for everything else.
Updated October 2026 · with examples from our own builds
What does MVP mean in practice?
An MVP is a deliberate cut, not a cheap version. You choose the one job the product must do well for its first users, build that properly, and put the rest on a written list for later. What you leave out tells you what you are actually testing.
The decisions that hurt later are the ones that are hard to reverse: desktop install or web service, one account or many, which country opens first. They shape the codebase, and changing them after launch usually means rebuilding part of it, so settle them before the estimate rather than after.
Cutting too little gives you a first release that takes a year and tests nothing in particular. Cutting the wrong thing, such as payments, an admin view or the account deletion both app stores require, gives you a release that cannot go out at all.
MVP at a glance
- Who decides the cut
- The founder, with the lead engineer pricing each option
- What to write down
- Everything deliberately left out, with the reason
- Costliest mistake
- Deferring a decision the architecture depends on
Where has MVP come up in our builds?
We built the free reference layer first (travel rules, city guides, care guides and browser-only tools) and left the pet-stay host marketplace as the planned next phase. City pages switch to bookings only once a city has at least ten verified hosts. The site is built and runs locally; it is not deployed.
Our phase-1 proposal replaces a legacy back office of over 400 screens with one job engine, keeps the accounts in Tally rather than rebuilding a ledger, and moves ICEGATE filing and AI document extraction to phase 1.5. It is a recommendation from discovery; nothing has been built.
The scoping pack put the first-release questions in front of the prospect before any estimate: desktop or web, single or multi-account, and whether voice cloning and AI personalisation belong in the first release. Discovery only; nothing was built.
Common questions about MVP
How do I decide what to leave out of my first release?
Start from the one job a first user must be able to finish without help, and list everything else with a reason for deferring it. Keep anything the app stores or the law require, and settle the choices the architecture depends on, such as desktop versus web, before you ask for a price.
Can an MVP be built so the full product doesn't need a rewrite?
Usually, if the cut is in features rather than foundations. Petym's reference site already carries the city gating the later marketplace needs, so the next phase adds bookings to it instead of replacing it.
Related terms
Planning a product and not sure where MVP fits? Ask us, or browse all 116 terms in the glossary.