A minimum viable product (MVP) is a key element of the lean startup approach. The idea is that, rather than spending years creating a full product only to find out it’s not really what the market wants, you quickly create a product with enough features to go to market with and get feedback. Then you can iterate and improve on that without risking an all-in failure.
In an interview with WeWork co-founder Miguel KcKelvey for the terrific “How I Built This” podcast, though, we hear that WeWork never had an MVP. They had an idea for the kind of experience that they wanted to provide and they built out their very first space to reflect that. And it was very successful. No doubt over time they’ve added to and refined it, but it was far more than an MVP.
Similarly Tesla never had an MVP – a cheap, economy car that would let them get their toe in the electric car market, and later move up market. The first Tesla was a sporty roadster priced at $109,000. Then they released the Model S sedan which cost around $80,000. The Model 3 was supposed to cost around $35,000, but tricked out as you’d want it it costs more like $50,000-55,000. Instead of starting minimal, they started high end and worked down. (When Japanese car manufacturers entered the U.S. market 60 years ago they started small and inexpensive. Hard though it may be to believe today, there was a time when “Made in Japan” meant, to most Americans, that an item was cheap and poorly made. But the Japanese companies consistently improved their products and today they’re more reliable than most cars from U.S. manufacturers.)
An MVP is a good idea in some markets, like software, but if you’re selling a high end experience or product, you need to deliver that to even your earliest customers. Doing that also establishes yours as a quality brand.
