What is the Difference Between MVP vs. MMF

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The Agile value proposition is about early delivery of business value, reduced risk, increased visibility, and increased adaptability. These are achieved by continuously delivering customer-valued functionality by building minimal viable products (MVP) and minimal marketable features (MMF).

Minimum Viable Product vs. Minimal Marketable Feature

The terms MVP or MMF are often used interchangeably, but are they really the same thing and if not so what is the difference?

One might argue that MVP is about products and MMF is about features but that would emphasize the wrong letter. You can think of MMFs as MMPs (minimal marketable products) to avoid that confusion. The real difference between the two is viable vs. marketable.

Minimal Viable Product (MVP)

In Lean Startup, Eric Reiss defines MVP as:

“The Minimal Viable Product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”

Eric Reiss

In other words, the minimum viable product (MVP) is about validated learning using the least amount of time and money. It is about answering the question: Are we building the right thing? It is targeted at early adopters or a subset of customers with the main goal of obtaining feedback on the potential viability of the product hypothesis. The MVP might not be a product at all. It can be a simple prototype as long as it helps acquire the relevant knowledge or raises key risks.

An example of an MVP is an ad campaign for products that do not exist yet. The campaign simply directs potential customers to landing pages with info about the product. Metrics track the interest of potential customers in the product and which features are receiving the most attention. These metrics help validate the hypothesis around certain features.

So the MVP helps a team discover the potential minimum marketable features (MMFs) to build.

Minimum Marketable Feature (MMF)

In Software by Numbers, Mark Denne defines MMF as:

“The Minimum Marketable Feature is the smallest unit of functionality with intrinsic market value.”

Mark Denne

In other words, the minimum marketable feature (MMF) is a real feature that provides tangible value to customers. It addresses a specific need, solves a certain problem, and is of high quality and usability. It is a feature that can be marketed, sold, and shipped.

An example of MMF is releasing an initial product with core features and then incrementally releasing additional features along the way instead of building a massive product with tons of features and releasing it all at once only to discover later that over 60% of the features built were never or rarely used. So the MMF is all about focusing on high-value features, reducing time to market, and launching products faster to increase ROI.

Also check out the Lean Discovery, Agile Delivery, and DevOps Mindset presentation slides here as well as the entire Digital Service Delivery blog series: