Product Management: Foundations to Practice · Product-Market Fit
The Lean Startup and MVPs
Eric Ries's Build-Measure-Learn loop and the concept of a minimum viable product are two of the most cited, and most commonly misapplied, ideas in early-stage product development.
Eric Ries's Lean Startup methodology frames early-stage product development as a cycle of Build-Measure-Learn: build the smallest possible version of an idea that can generate real learning, measure how customers actually respond to it, and use that data to decide whether to persevere with the current direction or pivot to a different approach. The loop is meant to run repeatedly and quickly, since each cycle's value comes from the learning it produces, not from the artifact itself.
Key Takeaways
- Build-Measure-Learn is a repeated cycle whose value comes from the learning generated, not the artifact built.
- An MVP is the smallest experiment that tests the riskiest assumption, not simply a smaller final product.
- Concierge MVPs deliver value manually; Wizard of Oz MVPs simulate automation with a human behind the scenes.
- Refusing to pivot despite clear evidence, not pivoting itself, is the failure the Lean Startup process guards against.