“My biggest learning from the SaaS Business simulation experience? Oh, that’s easy and something I am going to take back to the job tomorrow; the company that launches first has the most strategic advantage, and gosh darn it, we should have had that minimum viable product (MVP) before our competitors.”

The concept of using the minimum viable product approach to test a business model is one of the most important concepts to hit the business world in many years. It was a very valuable lesson for my SaaS simulation participants, so I figured it’s nice to do a refresh on the MVP from a Business Acumen Perspective.

The Basic Concept: The Minimum Viable Product

In doing some research, I discovered that the concept of a "Minimum viable product" in Business Acumen is a term coined by Frank Robinson and popularized by Eric Ries, founder of the Lean Startup methodology. This is one of my favorite books as the concepts lend themselves to simulation-centric learning. Eric Ries also invented the concept of “persevere or pivot” which we use in every Advantexe digital business simulation round.