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Comment by arendtio | Hacker News Reader

The book "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries helped me understand what an MVP is about. It is about learning. So 'viable' doesn't mean someone can barely use it to do X. It is more like an experiment that should answer a question (an hypothesis).

So an MVP can be crappy, as long as it helps to answer the question it is supposed to answer. The lovable part should come, once you understand your environment and can build something that people actually need.

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Viable doesn't usually mean a thing is only just or barely sufficient. It usually means a thing is at least sufficient. It means a thing is more than good enough to be viable. The question "is it viable?" is used to find out if something is at the point of being "good enough" or greater, and something more than good enough will still be "perfectly viable". "Minimal Viable" doesn't extend to great, but it does also reach perfect viability. Describe something as "barely viable" suggests its not quite viable. Viability is all about passing the threshold of being in fact viable. As viable is a binary qualifier, the "Minimal" part more intelligibly constrains the "Product". Its a minimal product that is yet viable, not a product with minimal viability.

In the same vein "Minimal Lovable Product", shouldn't mean a product which someone could only barely love :]

That doesn't sound like a "product" to me nor does it sound "viable." That sounds like a regular old prototype.

I think of prototype as something to show that you can build something. No end user uses a prototype. End users use MVPs. I agree with GP

It’s almost like it’s a pedantic argument from the start

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