This statement has been pounded into our entrepreneurial souls, at every step of our product development and growth journeys. It’s the reason why so many startup entrepreneurs and corporate intrapreneurs stop before they have a chance to get started. Nobody likes the thought of taking on a big risk, especially when facing a failure rate that some startup analysts quantify to be 92 percent.
It’s this idea that underscores the rationale for running a minimum viable product (MVP) that yields the highest return on investment at the lowest risk.
MVPs help entrepreneurs and corporate intrapreneurs outsmart the odds of failure by compartmentalizing big decisions—and big risks—into a series of smaller ones. As a result, we’re empowered to course-correct our decisions before risks outpace our chances for success.