MVPs 101: Getting from Idea to Product
By Francesca Palomo-Picache
A startup can take up to a couple of years to launch… sometimes even longer!
These delays are usually caused by long and tedious development periods, difficulty
with understanding the market’s wants and needs (especially when potential
customers give conflicting feedback), and founders’ anxiousness about releasing an
imperfect product.
To speed up this process, startups create minimum viable products (or MVPs)
that test and validate their proof of concept (POC) in a quick and cost-effective way.
What are MVPs?
Coined by Eric Ries in his book The Lean Startup (2011), an MVP is the most basic
version of your solution (like a website landing page, an app mockup, or even a
WhatsApp group chat) that lets you test some assumptions you have about your
market.
It is difficult to release a fully-functional final product into the market right away
because, at this early stage, most of what founders know about the market are
merely assumptions. They could spend months, or even years, developing a
complicated platform with many features only to launch it and discover that their
market does not need to use 90% of the features. This is both costly and time-
consuming, so it is better to launch a simple MVP first and make the necessary
adjustments from there.
MVPs, because of their simple nature, require manual processes at the start. This
early on, founders ought to do things that don’t scale, like messaging customers
themselves to simulate a chatbot or manually connecting doctors and patients via
e-mail like a platform service. After validating which products and services have
customer demand however, these processes can be adjusted for scalability and
efficiency.
Creating MVPs
To create an MVP, one must first summarize their initial business idea, then come up
with some assumptions to validate about their market. This could be related to
customer wants and needs (like “Pet owners want to do consultations for their pets
online”) or a feasibility aspect (like “Pet health consultations can be done correctly
online”). From there, each assumption would have a corresponding feature that is
simple, measurable, and representative of the initial business idea.
MVPs do not need to be very technical products. No-code website builders like Wix
are perfect for simple landing pages, and simple app mockups can be made through
drag-and-drop tools like Figma and Canva. MVPs can even be as simple as a
WhatsApp group or Zoom call – the possibilities are endless!
Here are some examples of MVPs created by participants of an MVP workshop held
by the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management Entrepreneurship Centre:
A website with a “sign up now” button for an eyeglass subscription business
Selling idli (an Indian rice cake) on Sundays to students in a school dormitory
for an idli business
A simple group chat with a voting system for a plant care forum platform.
Testing MVPs
MVPs must be tested to know which features to keep and throw away, and the
Build-Measure-Learn (BML) framework is an effective and efficient way to do this:
Build: Create your MVP.
Measure: Set quantifiable success metrics (like a target number of sign-ups,
letters of intent, orders, etc.) and collect consumer insights.
Learn: Use the consumer insights as a basis for improving your product (ex:
if only 1 person signs up for your service after 1 month, find out why people
don’t sign up and adjust the service accordingly).
Note that BML is a never-ending process of iteration, and after the Learn stage, it is
time to go back to the Build and update your product as needed.
Conclusion
By creating an MVP, startups can significantly reduce time and resources spent on
product development while gaining valuable market insights. This iterative process
of building, measuring, and learning helps founders refine their offerings based on
real customer feedback, ultimately increasing the chances of launching a successful
product.
If you have a business idea and you need help with building your MVP, book an Idea
Talk with the FSEC team today!
------------
A startup can take up to a couple of years to launch, sometimes even longer! These
delays are usually caused by long and tedious development periods, difficulty in
understanding the market’s wants and needs (especially when potential customers
give conflicting feedback), and founders’ anxiousness about releasing an imperfect
product.
To speed up this process, startups create minimum viable products (MVPs) that test
and validate their proof of concept (POC) in a quick and cost-effective way.
What are MVPs?
Coined by Eric Ries in his book The Lean Startup (2011), an MVP is the most basic
version of your solution (like a website landing page, an app mockup, or even a
WhatsApp group chat) that lets you test some assumptions you have about your
market.
It is difficult to release a fully functional final product into the market right away
because, at this early stage, most of what founders know about the market are
merely assumptions. They could spend months, or even years, developing a
complicated platform with many features only to launch it and discover that their
market does not need 90% of the features. This is both costly and time-consuming,
so it is better to launch a simple MVP first and make the necessary adjustments
from there.
MVPs, because of their simple nature, require manual processes at the start. Early
on, founders should do things that don’t scale, like messaging customers
themselves to simulate a chatbot or manually connecting doctors and patients via
email. After validating which products and services have customer demand, these
processes can be adjusted for scalability and efficiency.
Creating MVPs
To create an MVP, one must first summarize their initial business idea, then come up
with some assumptions to validate about their market. These could be related to
customer wants and needs (like “Pet owners want to do consultations for their pets
online”) or feasibility (like “Pet health consultations can be done correctly online”).
From there, each assumption would have a corresponding feature that is simple,
measurable, and representative of the initial business idea.
MVPs do not need to be very technical products. No-code website builders like Wix
are perfect for simple landing pages, and simple app mockups can be made through
drag-and-drop tools like Figma and Canva. MVPs can even be as simple as a
WhatsApp group or Zoom call—the possibilities are endless!
Here are some examples of MVPs created by participants of an MVP workshop held
by the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management Entrepreneurship Centre:
A website with a “sign up now” button for an eyeglass subscription business
Selling idli (an Indian rice cake) on Sundays to students in a school dormitory
for an idli business
A simple group chat with a voting system for a plant care forum platform
Testing MVPs
MVPs must be tested to know which features to keep and discard, and the Build-
Measure-Learn (BML) framework is an effective and efficient way to do this:
Build: Create your MVP.
Measure: Set quantifiable success metrics (like a target number of sign-ups,
letters of intent, orders, etc.) and collect consumer insights.
Learn: Use the consumer insights as a basis for improving your product (e.g.,
if only one person signs up for your service after one month, find out why
people don’t sign up and adjust the service accordingly).
Note that BML is a never-ending process of iteration, and after the Learn stage, it is
time to go back to Build and update your product as needed.
Conclusion
By creating an MVP, startups can significantly reduce time and resources spent on
product development while gaining valuable market insights. This iterative process
of building, measuring, and learning helps founders refine their offerings based on
real customer feedback, ultimately increasing the chances of launching a successful
product.
If you have a business idea and need help with building your MVP, book an Idea Talk
with the FSEC team today!
About the Author
Francesca Ma Isabella Palomo-Picache
FS Master in Management Class of 2025, Venture Builder at Vali Berlin
Cheska is a venture builder with 7 years of work experience in corporate and
startups. She ideated, managed, and grew startups in B2B, B2C, e-commerce,
healthtech, real estate, and edutech. She specializes in early-stage startup strategy,
MVP creation and validation, and marketing.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/francescapicache/
