The age of Minimum Viable Product is over.

The time of the Minimum Lovable Product has come.

The “MVP” has been the star child of venture frameworks since 2001.

But AI is going to kill the MVP. It might already be dead.

Why? Because building products that meet the minimum requirements for function…

…forces us to prioritize problems that are no very longer important.

MVPs make us start the hard process of building, early

→ but between Bubble and ChatGPT, I already have my app in hours.

MVPs make us test for customer need, early

→ but between Reddit and Semrush, I already know market demand is there.

So where do we go from here? Minimum LOVABLE Products

My co-workers R/GA used to toss this term around in 2019/2020. I dug it. But clients didn’t seem to get too excited when we'd drop it on them.

It was ahead of its time.

Not any more. In fact, most “MVPs” I’ve seen recently are just "MLPs" with the wrong name.

MLPs guide us toward building things that meet the minimum requirements for enjoyment…

...and prioritize the problems of tomorrow.

MLPs will make it clear if anyone actually likes your product enough to talk about it + sell it for you

→ This ties to distribution: the biggest problem now that basically every market is crowded.

MLPs also make clear if people like your product enough to make a habit out of using it (not just test it once, MVP-style)

→ This ties to churn: another major problem now that every market is crowded.

OK, so you're an aspiring or early SaaS founder, what should you do about this?

1️⃣ Get your “basic validation” over ASAP or just skip it. If you don’t have anything built yet, use 1 of the 100 tools that Greg Isenberg writes about. (Also, have a hard look in the mirror as to why you haven’t been doing this already).

2️⃣ Get creative EARLY; look to gaming, entertainment, and mobile apps for inspiration during the design process.

3️⃣ Connect product features with usage metrics, immediately.

4️⃣ Learn from 1-10 real fans, not friends who are happy to test for you; track testimonials and word-of-mouth like a hawk, immediately.

5️⃣ Stop hesitating to spend on great brand or design. You can’t have an MLP without Design.

Author

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