Beyond the Minimum: Why Your Next MVP Must Be Lovable

The term Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the most dangerous phrase in modern software development

The pressure to be "minimum" often leads companies to launch a fragile, unattractive product that fails to gain traction. When the product fails, the company concludes the idea was bad, when in reality, the execution was merely unlovable. This is the $100k mistake of wasting budget on something that generates a false negative.

The Wise Shift: From MVP to MLP

At Glinteco, we define the starting point not as the Minimum Viable Product, but as the Minimum Lovable Product (MLP)

The MLP must do one core thing flawlessly. It must be polished, intuitive, and solve a user's problem so completely that they would be sad if it were taken away. This shift in mindset requires three things:

1. Ruthless Prioritization: If a feature doesn't directly validate your core business hypothesis, it gets cut. We introduce discipline to defeat scope creep.
    

2. Time-Boxing Over Budget: We treat the first phase as a non-negotiable 90-Day Sprint to Validation. This forces the team to commit to a focused, clean scope, accelerating learning.
    

3. External Objectivity: Internal teams are often emotionally attached to features. An objective outside partner ensures that every decision serves the hypothesis, not internal ego or complexity.

The goal is not to ship the cheapest thing; it's to ship the smartest thing that de-risks your investment and validates your path to scale.