A Minimum Viable Distinctive Value Proposition (MVDVP), is the minimum you can invest in to test a value proposition hypotheses. An MVDVP is often built within an incremental and iterative method, such as The Hypotheses, Design Experiments, Test, and Insights Process, on a development journey towards a complete Distinctive Value Proposition (DVP).
To paraphrase Ash Maurya from Scaling Lean, “an MVDVP is the smallest value proposition that creates and captures monetizable value from customers,” to enable the hypotheses to be tested.
For a website, the MVDVP may be a landing page with dropdown lists, but without fully functioning buttons, the backend program, a backend database, or credit card facilities yet. If you’re thinking of starting a restaurant, maybe the MVDVP is walking down the high street in themed costume with a platter of giveaway samples. If you are successful in giving away free food, you can extend the experiment by repeating what you did previously another day by then trying to sell the samples.
In all cases, the MVDVP is used to test hypotheses by soliciting interest, feedback, and hopefully sales, or at least cash-up-front pre-orders. You achieve this by showing prospects what the MVDVP looks like and how it functions, within the current limits of the MVDVP since, by definition, it is not complete. You use the feedback received to validate the hypotheses, improve the MVDVP, and you repeat, either until you have very high confidence that your MVDVP is ready for launch as the DVP, or that no one is interested, or there will not be enough Customers or Customers will unlikely pay you what you need, in which case you either pivot or abandon.
The term Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is similar to MVDVP, but as the MVP definition and scope is a subset of MVDVP, the term MVP is deprecated on our websites.