In the phrase “minimum viable product” (or MVP), the keyword is MINIMUM. And there’s your biggest mistake.

First of all, if you don’t that what’s an MVP, see here.

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What’s the biggest mistake you can make related to building your MVP (Minimum Viable Product)?

The biggest mistake that people make when it comes to their MVP is doing more than you need to do.

Building an MVP means building the least amount of features that get you the information you need from the market (that your product is necessary).

But our mistake, as startup founders and product creators, is thinking that the least amount of features necessary for something to be the MVP is actually a lot more than what you really need.

Think about this: Dropbox had an email form explaining what their product will do. That’s it. And they had 75,000 people waiting to test their first version.

So, let’s say we’re building a website for pet owners. The MVP should be a form where some owners can put their details and they get the information they need. Even if that means you do the manual job of finding the information for them.

The mistake would be to build an entire website, with a great design or with any kind of design, and put it online and take the time to create a logo and take the time to think really well about the name.

You don’t need that in order for you to test the idea. You just need the form and the information you provide and you need to get some users to use that MVP to see if the idea that you have is actually good for the targeted audience.

Do not over-complicate things: this is the biggest mistake you can make when it comes to the minimum viable product for a startup.

Or, as Paul Graham put it: during the MVP phase, you must do things that don’t scale.

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