MVP, MLP, MMP, and MSP – The Ultimate Showdown

Getting into entrepreneurship, there is a myriad of options. Getting into a digital business, you get even more. It is a challenge to successfully navigate an ever-changing market. It is also a feat to adapt to fast-developing technologies. In this article, we will compare MVP, MLP, MMP, and MSP.  

Add to the above the need to anticipate any sways in user preferences and competitive shifts. And one realizes that there should be a system. The kind that will provide a single strategic vision and clearly structured planning. 

Plus, during the development phase, you never question “Can your vendor’s team do it?”. You should question “Should they?” Choosing and sticking to one framework provides quite tangible benefits:

• staying focused, 
• moving swiftly to the desired result,
• Faster decision-making,
• Reducing waste of time and money,
• Anticipating challenges.

Choosing one approach ensures your start-up works like a well-oiled machine. So, in this, article, we will show the three key current most productive and efficient approaches: 

• MVP (Minimum Viable Product),
• MLP (Minimum Lovable Product),
• MMP (Minimum Marketable Product) or MSP (Minimum Sellable Product)

MVP – Minimum Viable Product approach

The concept originated out of a constant struggle on how to ensure business success. Frank Robinson coined the term Minimum Viable Product in 2001. MVP approach came around to minimize waste and maximize learning to prevent business failure. A lot of new ventures, start-ups, and ideas crash against the market. 

So, to not burn through cash and make sure you find a profitable spot, the MVP approach appeared. These two points were the biggest challenges of that time, and MVP solved them.

The term MVP took off with the work of Eric Ries. In his book, The Lean Startup, he defined an MVP:

The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.

“The Lean Startup” – Eric Ries

And effort is a business owner’s time and money. 

We’ve already discussed an MVP definition at length in our article What is MVP? You can think of MVP as the ideal digital product from the standpoint of rational resource allocation. 

Another key founder of the MVP concept is Steve Blank. He defined and popularized the term Customer Development. This term successfully complements the product development concept. 

The app development process in itself is a straightforward process. There is no problem with implementing something if you know what to implement. What the struggle is: the unpredictable and chaotic nature of customer needs and wants.  

 We invite you to check out basically any of today’s vendor’s development processes. In each, you will notice a striking resemblance to Blank’s Customer Development framework (picture below).  

Blank’s Customer Development Framework

Blank was the one to contrast market and customer research. If you need to learn about the market, the process is plain and simple. You check key players, compare their offerings, estimate the revenues, and search for a gap. You try to see what does not exist on the market yet or what needs improvements. 

In contrast, understanding customer needs and wishes is a different ground. It is hard to put it in numbers and metrics. Even knowing the moment when you’ve learned enough about customers is not an apparent point. 

This is where Blank’s framework offers a step-by-step iterative approach with defined deliverables. It is all embedded in the MVP approach.

Basically, the MVP concept is the perfect mix of learning processes while spending the minimally necessary resources. It is the essence of startups and lean methodology. 

The Nuances with MVP

In its original meaning, MVP wasn’t an app and had little to do with development. Dropbox’s MVP was a 3-minute video. Airb’n’b started with a Concierge MVP – only front-end, all back-end was manual. 

But with today’s technological landscape and competitive environment, it is hardly ever enough. This is why today’s MVP is a complete product all on its own. It is more like a ruthlessly stripped-down app version of the initial, often wide in scope, business idea. The MVP approach is the same but the minimum threshold is a bit higher. 

On the positive side, this is why original MVPs were not for generating profits but currently are. Many resources today indicate that an MVP is a non-marketable product. Somehow the very same resources indicate that MVP ensures the fastest time-to-market. Funny, isn’t it? 

Anyways, with a current MVP app – you can expect user feedback along with some revenues.

Another point with MVP is that sometimes people describe it as basic and bare. And it is never like that anymore. MVP aims to satisfy minimum user needs. Today’s user needs have come a long way from basic. 

MVP helps to narrow down and prioritize the list of customer needs and wants. 

Then you start with the most promising needs. You build an MVP and learn from it. Sometimes, you find the niche relatively easy, sometimes it takes several iterations. On average, it may take a few MVPs to arrive at a viable scalable product. 

The point of the MVP remains the same, strong, and solid. “The least amount of resources to develop the required minimum to satisfy this minimal list of user needs”. In iterations.

MVP is the most proven and working concept there is. It stood the test of time in the fast-paced world of IT. But try to avoid Common MVP Mistakes. There is a lot done and tested about the concept itself, so it is best to work with experienced professionals.

MLP – Minimum Lovable Product

We should thank Brian de Haaff for his work on Minimum Lovable Product or MLP. The term popped up in 2013. It became popular with the book Lovability in 2016. So, 12 years after MVP originated, the business landscape changed, developed, and introduced new challenges that prompted new solutions. 

What business problem does MLP solve? There are three parts to that. 

• First, if you make an MVP app that leaves target users frustrated – it will force them to seek alternatives.
• Second, the nature of user relationships with technology is essentially transactional but also emotional. So it is not enough to simply solve a user’s problem. Your product should involve the user emotionally. To create a connection, an emotional resonance. 
• Third, the market has evolved. It might be not enough to just solve the users’ problems. The bar set by competition and users’ expectations has definitely risen. So the novel players should at least ‘charm’ with great designs in addition to meeting the users’ needs.

Market Evolution Towards MLP

With some market niches and competitive product segments, it is not enough to meet a narrow list of user needs and wants. Many markets are so advanced that an MVP won’t be enough. 

Let’s look at banking and financial apps. Even 10 years ago they could allow themselves to have a cryptic unfriendly interface. They gave access to remote control of clients’ accounts, so clients just had to learn how to use the interfaces at hand. 

Remember the calls to the support line when you couldn’t find something on the app or website? Many have been through this. Now the competition dictates that the user interface (UI) must be intuitive. The user experience (UX) must be smooth without any friction. 

Sidenot: Well, unless it is Wells Fargo. They are notoriously famous for their UI/UX.  But a century and a half of physical presence did its thing: gained customers’ trust.

Anyway, the point is that in some market segments, you should go the extra mile. Meaning to focus not only on solving a user’s problem but also on making users love your product. 

MLP Defined

The MLP approach means a business strategy of engaging users emotionally and creating long-term relationships. 

• In practice, your development agency ups the game with UI/UX and marketing. 
• With MLP, you focus on the aesthetics and memorability of your app. 
• You get an app that should build its fan base and its loyal early adopters. 
• User-generated content and communities are a big part of an MLP app.

MMP/MSP – Minimum Marketable Product / Minimum Sellable Product

While MVP and MLP focus on learning about the early adopters, MMP/MSP focuses on the paying ones. MMP, from the start, includes features with sales potential. And it aims to satisfy target user needs and is competitive in the market today. 

While MVP and MLP focus on learning from feedback and testing product hypotheses. MMP/MSP focuses on testing the waters of how much target users are willing to pay for this product and aims at financial results. 

With the MMP/MSP approach, you get a much narrower and more focused path of app development. There is a clear-cut focus on costs and revenues. There is an added challenge of staying current with the market. 

Plus, your team should focus on customers and the value they want to get from the product. It is not the process of discovering their needs, wants, and expectations. It is much more specific – it is about the value they get for the money they pay. 

MMP/MSP does mean though that you will have to go for a more upscale minimum app. Plus, more rigorous testing. After all, you are already competing with existing market players. The bar for the initial app is higher than it would be with MVP or even MLP. 

In addition, MVP and MLP appeal to a broader audience than MMP/MSP does. Hence, the insight limitations. 

The two scenarios: MMP-only VS MMP-after 

MVP-after

Nobody can deny the appeal of focusing on something that will definitely bring pay off. Yet, the start cost is going to be higher, the time is longer, and you do lose the broader insight. So, is there a middle ground? Sort of. 

This is why businesses choose sometimes to start with MVP or MLP and then scale it to MMP. MMP is ultimately a bigger app, two or three times in practice. But you get all the insights if you start with the MVP or MLP version first. 

You have a benefit if do MVP-after with the same development agency. They often can transfer well-functioning processes. This means the feedback-gathering processes and practices from MVP or MLP product version to your MMP/MSP. 

This way, your business journey is more iterative. In the digital world, it means more safety and security. 

MVP-only

The other way is to start with MMP/MSP. Sometimes, it just makes much more sense. 

• First of all, if you seek investors for your project, revenue focus is crucial. 
• Second, if you are a business that is expanding or transferring your offer to the digital arena. In this case, you already have a value proposition to market. So, there is not much need in an extensive learning process. 
• Some businesses choose to resort to MVP and MLP options only after they’ve exhausted their marketable opportunities. 

The Ultimate Showdown: Comparison Table

*Here, semi-marketable means that you often don’t start with selling. The initial MVP or MLP will try to measure the interest in the product. You test different offers to clients and also test different pricing strategies. 

From 1 to 3 MVPs/MLPs focus on learning about the users and from the users. This process aims to build a product that users are willing to pay for. After a few iterations, you can expect some form of revenue and profits. 

Generally, professional development companies get your MVP/MLP to fully pay off and generate money in 1 year +. And first iterations (MVP version) can be ready in 3 months +. 

*** All of the approaches represent the minimum product, so all of them can scale. 

Modeling a Case Scenario: One App in Three Approaches

To illustrate each of the approaches, let’s take one business idea, and see how it might unfold. 

Imagine you are into wealth creation and budgeting. You are around people who are all the time talking about planning their finances. They are into creating budgets for their households and financial goals. You are in this informational space and signed up for some blogs, forums, podcasts, and whatnot. 

Soon, you realize: hey, there isn’t a good enough product to fulfill the needs of the current financial planners. You decide to explore this business opportunity. You get an idea to create such kind of all-encompassing budgeting app. 

Straight off the bat, your idea is a kind of full-scale app. Any M-approach will scale it down to probably an expense tracker with goals included. Or something like a finance app for investors. Or a financial advising app for managing debt and starting savings. 

The goal is to select a few basic features and one that will stand out. It might be either desired, unique, or ‘lovable’ for some segment of this pool of financial achievers. 

The usual stages for professional app development vendors are Ideation, Prototyping, UI/UX design, Development, and Scaling. So, with that idea, let us take you through each stage. Let us showcase what similarities and differences there are with each approach. 

Development Scenarios: Expense Tracker Following MVP, MLP, and MMP/MSP approaches

The Ideation is the first stage and the differences are apparent already there. The main tasks, challenges, and the selection of corresponding metrics are all different. 

• In an MVP app, we first track simply the number of users who regularly visit the app. 
• In an MLP version, we care about how long they engage with the app per session. In both cases, they are simply visitors, non-paying users at this stage. 
• In an MMP/MSP app, we immediately care about purchases made. So how many users visited the page and made it to the purchase, a.k.a. converted? 

If we think about user retention, it is also different metrics depending on the approach. 

• In an MVP, we measure this metric regardless if we sell something or not. We are interested in the overall impact of the app. 
• In an MLP app, we are mostly interested in engagement rates. Your team can track this metric by channels, user segments, and cohorts. 
• In an MMP/MSP app, we should be looking at repeat purchases and customer lifetime value. 

Feedback and learning about customers are different as well. 

• In an MVP, we directly gather feedback.
• In an MLP, your team measures user participation on social media or other forms of engagement. There is also an NPS score which is a questionnaire that asks “How likely are you to recommend this app?”. 
• In an MMP/MSP, the users vote with their money, so that is a growth rate metric. In addition, they can rate a mobile application on the app store, and leave a comment there. Yet, it is secondary. 

Following all of the above, your vendor’s team implements prototyping and UI/UX accordingly. 

Development stages then continue in their respective directions.

In terms of scaling, in practice, MVPs and MLPs look to scale in 2 ways. One is by introducing more paying features. Second is by going on to develop a full-scale app. MMP/MSP scale into more features or different platforms. 

MVP, MLP, or MMP/MSP: What should you choose?

The running theme among all of the approaches is the keyword minimum. You can see that all approaches have a revenue potential. In practice, professional development agencies will guarantee the payoff for either of the options.  

Next, it depends on the startup idea. With some business ideas, it becomes very clear what to go for. One thing might be the only feasible option. But it happens only if the idea is very specific or too unique. 

Lastly, consider a mental/cultural fit of the approaches. Current business literature and publications scarcely approach this topic. After all, if you are pragmatic in mind and heart, you want to hear tangible numbers. So listening to reports about 10k more likes and 30k more reactions might feel frustrating at least. 

Psychological fit or cultural fit, if it is a company, matters. Months of hard work await you/your company. You will have to make a lot of decisions.

A sole business owner

If you are a sole entrepreneur, you might instantly feel a ‘match’ just by reading the proposed scenarios. Some other pointers are:

• If you are a business person ‘go big or go home’ type, MMP is the least you probably will consent to. 
• If you enjoy all the social media trends and community spirit, you can go for an MLP. 
• If you also need external investors, consider MMP as well. You need to convince stakeholders depending on their ‘mindset’. So, it might be easier to go with one approach over the other. 

A business

Next to a case If you are a business looking to develop a new product or gain a digital presence for the existing product. In this case, consider what current metrics the company uses and how it appraises its success. How it measures its business goals. 

• If your management and decision-makers think in ROIs and revenue metrics, choose MMP. Talking to them about community impact might be a challenge filled with frustration on both sides. 
• If you are a socially oriented business, your employees naturally be efficient with MLPs. It might be hard to contain all the flood of ‘users will love it’ initiatives in favor of a merciless feature-cutting MVP approach. 
• If you are not sure or feel there is a hidden potential, it is probably best to follow an MVP approach.    

Are there any other alternatives to MVP, MLP, and MMP/MSP?

The world of the Internet is full of options. And new approaches spring up as the need for them appears. Sometimes even starting with MVP can seem like a considerable investment and commitment. So to get the ball rolling, there are even simpler ways to validate your business idea. 

Here are some new, relatively fresh approaches. 

Minimum Catchy Offer

This is when you put the entire business plan in one sentence. This idea is even simpler than original MVP concept. Instead of Proof of Concept and other documents, your vendor might develop a Minimum Catchy Offer. Then, develop a simple prototype for it. 

It is a strategy of sort of rolling back to what MVP originally was but even simpler. 

DropBox started with a simple 3-minute video on a landing page. Uber put its idea into one sentence. How a user should push a button and in a few minutes ‘ time get a nice ride. Simple and easy to test. 

Black Hole VS Blue Ocean Strategies

These days, MVPs and MLPs try to aim for broader audiences (blue ocean). Instead, the Black Hole strategy tries to find hidden opportunities. 

Example? Let’s consider the market for learning business. Research has found that 40% of the entire Internet learners do self-stud. So why not create a platform for self-education instead of competing in an oversaturated market of course providers? 

Lean Investor

Sometimes, you develop an idea with the main and sole focus on attracting an investor. You do just enough research and prototyping to get the investment for the project. There is not much guidance to that approach. You think of the investors as your customers and they are the focus. 

After you get investors on board, you can go on and develop any of the above: MVP, MLP, or MMP/MSP. 

Happy entrepreneuring!

FAQ: Comparing MVP, MLP, MMP, and MSP