Your MVP isn't testing anything

About this episode

The episode discusses the true meaning of a Minimum Viable Product and the importance of testing market assumptions.

Hey friends 👋 Minimum Viable Product. Three words every founder knows, and almost nobody uses correctly. The “V” isn’t about whether the product exists—it’s about whether you can capture value back. Whether the market will actually pay. Whether you’re testing the riskiest assumption sitting between you and a working business model. Build without that framing, and you’re just... building. Optimizing something that may never have a buyer. This week, Cameron’s recording from a hotel room in Vegas (yes, really—there’s a marathon involved), and we dig into what an MVP actually is, why the “minimum lovable product” crowd is missing the point entirely, and what it looks like when founders get the test right—then fumble the follow-through anyway. We rate three scenarios on our conviction scale: an AI meal-planning app drowning in vanity metrics, a manual marketplace test with a very uncomfortable disintermediation signal, and a fraud-detection tool that had us fully on board until the last sentence. One of them earns an 8. One earns a 2. You’ll know which is which by the end. Cameron closes with his Mt. Charleston marathon prep (7,000 feet of downhill—his knees, but not his problem)…

People in this episode

Hosts: Cameron, JDM

Topics covered

• Minimum Viable Product
• founder challenges
• market testing
• business models
• product development

Keywords

• MVP
• minimum lovable product
• business model
• market testing
• founders
• vanity metrics
• product development

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Apple TV

Products: AI meal-planning app, manual marketplace test, fraud-detection tool

Books & works: Hijack

Places: Vegas, Mt. Charleston

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