MVP for Large Products - Oxymoron?
There’s a certain minimum number of features that some products will require before they can gain traction, before they are valuable and will start to show traction through network effects starting to cycle, and allowing interplay to occur.
If you’re an investor looking at it it perhaps will feel riskier if you don’t understand all of the metrics at play, and their multiplier, amplifier, network effects.
Just because something requires more work that makes it a larger project based on task count, doesn’t mean it’s not lean. Sure, there might be more inherent risk, and sure, there might be harder to convince people to invest (due to deeper understanding of complexity required) - though then there’s also a higher likelihood everyone else has had the same challenges and is perhaps why the opportunity exists.
With the project I’m focusing on now I have a prototype, though I realized there were certain features missing for it to be the MVP. And in reality it’s not that ‘large’ of an MVP if it leads to creating a network of 50+ million users.
“Minimum” should be defined relative to the scope/reach/impact of each project. You want to stay lean, but that doesn’t mean your product can be built in a day.
