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I totally agree there exist certain product market fits where an MVP approach doesn't work, or the MVP is so large it probably shouldn't be called an MVP. But

I totally agree there exist certain product market fits where an MVP approach doesn't work, or the MVP is so large it probably shouldn't be called an MVP. But I think they are rare. Also the risks aren't symmetrical. If you take an MVP approach and find out an MVP doesn't work you can always build a bigger badder product, you're out a little bit of time(relatively). If however you build out a big bad product and find out you don't have product market fit. You're much more screwed. Another reason this advice is useful, is because new founders who are more likely to rely on advice and rules of thumb over their own experience are far less capable of solving an un-mvp-able ideas simply because they'll have far less access to the capital required to build a big bad product.

monsieurbanana 6y ago
In this kind of talks we take for granted that the startup is trying to solve an "easy" problem. We don't talk here about the "hard" ones, the ones that aren't only a web UI. Hardware, medical, societal, etc... Ones that need years of research before you even know if it's feasible. I use air quotes for easy and hard since obviously they are not the words I'm looking for, but I can't find better ones. All(?) problems are difficult to solve in some way. Anyways, this is almost off-topic, not really fitted for a pragmatic thread such as this one :)
- JamesBarney 6y ago
  Yeah mvp only applies to startups where product market fit is the biggest risk. If you have a known market like nuclear fusion and your biggest challenge is going to be how do I scale nuclear fusion, and how do I raise money from the DoD than mvp/lean startup and 99% of the advice on this site aren't applicable.
  - nwienert 6y ago
    A huge chunk of startups covered on this site disrupted existing industries and as the web matures MVP becomes less and less useful. The original post here wasn’t a good fit for MVP, and yet we had to come and swat down the proselytizing as it’s so pervasive. Tesla, Google, and just so many huge companies absolutely aren’t good fits for it. It’s a limiting framework at this point as people seem to have oversubscribed to the philosophy and turned it into religion.

monsieurbanana 6y ago

In this kind of talks we take for granted that the startup is trying to solve an "easy" problem. We don't talk here about the "hard" ones, the ones that aren't only a web UI. Hardware, medical, societal, etc... Ones that need years of research before you even know if it's feasible. I use air quotes for easy and hard since obviously they are not the words I'm looking for, but I can't find better ones. All(?) problems are difficult to solve in some way. Anyways, this is almost off-topic, not really fitted for a pragmatic thread such as this one :)

JamesBarney 6y ago
Yeah mvp only applies to startups where product market fit is the biggest risk. If you have a known market like nuclear fusion and your biggest challenge is going to be how do I scale nuclear fusion, and how do I raise money from the DoD than mvp/lean startup and 99% of the advice on this site aren't applicable.
- nwienert 6y ago
  A huge chunk of startups covered on this site disrupted existing industries and as the web matures MVP becomes less and less useful. The original post here wasn’t a good fit for MVP, and yet we had to come and swat down the proselytizing as it’s so pervasive. Tesla, Google, and just so many huge companies absolutely aren’t good fits for it. It’s a limiting framework at this point as people seem to have oversubscribed to the philosophy and turned it into religion.