🚨 "MVP Trap" (The MVP Trap)

🚨 "MVP Trap" (The MVP Trap)

When the word "experiment first" becomes the most dangerous excuse of Product people, and why modern organizations have to "think sharp before speeding up,"

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💥 hit sentence that could kill Product you unknowingly.

In Product, Startup, and even Project Team boardrooms in large organizations, we often hear the same sentence repeatedly at the start of a task or speed up the task:

"Don't think too much. Make an MVP to test the market first!"

It sounds like an agile, Agile-looking piece of advice and seems to correspond to an era when people like to say "Fail Fast, Learn Fast," but the truth is... this is a "sweet poison pill" that is wasting money on many organizations, wasting time and unintentionally losing high-caliber workers.

In the corner of Moe Ali, Product Faculty CEO, who teaches Product Manager around the world, he once wrote a warning on his LinkedIn that many organizations are "using MVP the wrong way," and even worse, that they are using MVP.

"They are using MVP as an excuse to avoid the most important steps of Product Management."

➡️ Strategic Thinking

➡️ Goal Clarity

➡️ Evidence-Based Understanding

When the team says "let's do it first, I'll know" without direction, it's not mobility, it's the most expensive risk.

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🧠 Why is "speed" not always the answer?

The heart of the MVP is not speed, as many people misunderstand, but learning that will make you better decisions to move forward.

Before creating an MVP, you need to answer a simple (but mostly unanswered) question as follows:

1) What is the goal of the product? (Product Goal)

* If you still don't know what to measure? = The experiment is meaningless.

2) Who Are We Solving For? (Target Segment)

* Many teams make an MVP who doesn't even know who the "real customer is?" and what is his behavior like?

3) In which direction do we walk? (Strategic Direction)

* If the direction is unclear, the MVP is only a random shot, which is not Product management.

When the strategy isn't complete, but go back and speed up "delivery as fast as possible," what happens is that the organization is driving a Ferrari at high speed... but it's blindfolded.

And when the MVP doesn't work, the team is trapped.

* Didn't know the problem was with the poorly built MVP?

* Or actually, "The problem trying to solve... didn't exist in the first place?"

* Or selected market groups "not customers with real needs?"

* Or does the team not yet understand in-depth user behavior?

When these things are unclear, the team will loop unguided features into a feature factory that never came close to success.

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📝 Lesson from Amazon = "Write to Clear = Think Sharp"

While many companies focus on making slides and immediately bouncing into MVP, Amazon has a culture in which the park is completely "prohibited from using PowerPoint to offer important ideas."

Every idea must be written as "6-Page Narrative Memo," which is described in detail:

* The problem and the Insight found?

* Who was actually affected?

* Possible alternative?

* Risks and unknowns? (Unknowns)

* Indicators of Success? (Success Metrics)

Jeff Bezos has always insisted that "Clear writing is clear thinking."

Slides can be "made to look good" with images and graphs, but Narrative writing can never deceive anyone because it forces the author to compile their thoughts rationally.

If you can't explain the idea clearly on paper, it means you're "uncrystallized," and making an MVP at this point is an unnecessary risk.

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🧭 gave up "Scrappy" with the idea, but "Scrappy" with the experiment.

Moe Ali left the end of a sentence that fits the era when AI made the creation of stuff very easy.

"Be scrappy with testing ideas, not in your critical thinking."

The meaning is that nowadays you can

* Prototype in 10 minutes

* Landing in 1 hour

* Or do Demo within a day through AI tools etc.

So Critical Thinking is the real advantage, not speed.

AI makes "build fast" become normal, but AI can't think for you that.

* What do customers really want?

* Is the problem you're trying to solve a weighty enough problem?

* A choice you don't choose... might be a better solution? etc.

"This era is not the era of the fastest-building people, but the era of the most thoughtful people."

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✨ Before the next MVP... ask yourself one question?

"Are we really experimenting to learn, or are we using the word MVP as an excuse not to be sharp?"

Because the great product didn't start with the earliest creation, but from

🔎 sharp idea.

📊 strong evidence.

🧭 And the right direction.

When these things are complete, the MVP is not a shortcut, but a rational investment that increases the likelihood of success 10 times, and more importantly, it avoids the "waste" that is happening in many unwitting organizations.

# Two stories a day # ProductManagement # MVP # Strategy # CriticalThinking