What is ‘The Minimum Marketable Product’?

You have heard of the minimum viable product(MVP) no doubt, well product managers have what is called the minimum marketable product (MMP). MMP is a product or service that meets the selected customer’s needs.

The minimum viable product (MVP) is a powerful concept that allows you to test your ideas. It is not to be confused with the minimal marketable product (MMP), the product with the smallest feature set that still addresses the user needs and creates the right user experience. The MVP helps you acquire the relevant knowledge and address key risks; the MMP reduces time-to-market and enables you to launch your product faster. This post discusses both concepts, and it shows how you can use the minimum viable product to create a minimal marketable one. (Source: Roman Pitchler)

Take the Apple Watch for example, it’s marketable customer needs are indeed narrow, and rather than being a device for the masses, it satisfies a particular niche market. As opposed to regular watches, Apple’s smart watch provides the ability to receive notifications from your iPhone, an extension that notifies the user through a vibration, when a text message, or phone call is coming in, or an in-app push notification is happening.

Whilst limited, the users can also use their smart-watch to send pre-baked text messages back, as well, and whilst it has an app ecosystem, the apps are meant to be a mere extension rather than replacement to one’s phone.

The obvious benefits of an MPP is that it speeds up development-time-to-market, with lower development effort and larger return on investment. An even greater benefit, is the quick time-to-market means product owners can listen to their users quickly. Even if in the case of Apple they are mostly early-adopters, that vital early and rapid feedback especially in a new category of products means the company is able to respond, adjust and pivot more rapidly.

The least rigid the future roadmap of the product, the better it is, because your roadmap should pivot and adjust dynamically, based on user feedback and reactions, and a minimal product as far as functionality means precise and targeted feedback is more readily available, more focused with the allowance for each individual features and components to be individually validated.

MMP is more focused on less is more, smallest feature-set. That addresses the users needs, with the right level of simplistic UI t hat can be sold and marketed successfully.

The key to creating a successful MMP is to “develop the product for the few, not the many,” as Steve Blank puts it, and to focus on those features that make a real difference to the users. To discover the right features, the MVP is a fantastic tool. (Cited in Roman Pitchler)

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