IDEO had some good thoughts about properly balancing objectives in the MVP, so as not to lose the “essence” of the idea:
In the pursuit of a minimum viable product (MVP), we’ve seen that it’s important to evaluate early the critical components that will differentiate an offer from competition and make a product truly viable.
An MVP should be the easiest way to test your hypothesis, but that doesn’t mean that building one is easy. A common mistake is refusing to tackle the tough technical problems that create revolutionary offerings. As Ries writes, some entrepreneurs hear “minimum viable” product as “smallest imaginable” product. This misunderstanding of Lean Startup tenets can have expensive consequences. Sometimes, entrepreneurs miss a key opportunity to establish market differentiation by interpreting the “minimum” component of an MVP to mean “nothing challenging.” Worse, they sometimes create a product that’s not competitive by rationalizing that they can get ‘something like’ the core idea by replacing a feature with something easier to implement.
One best practice we’ve identified is to always ask: Are certain challenging features critical to your value proposition? Would investment in these features lead to a revolutionary offering, or a valuable and differentiating capability? By addressing essential challenges before MVP launch, companies can gain years of advantage on their competition.
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