✍️ Essay
Free
Beginner
Why we picked it This is the essay that named the problem: an MVP quietly pushes you to build a whole product when what you actually need is to test one thing. Higham makes the case for the Riskiest Assumption Test (RAT), building only enough to learn whether your single biggest unknown holds. It is the sharpest starting point for deciding what to test instead of what to build.
The MVP is dead. Long live the RAT.
From HackerNoon by Rik Higham 8 min read
- An MVP is not really a product, it is a way to test whether you have found a problem worth solving, so treat it as a test, not a launch.
- Find your largest unknown and build only what is needed to test it, nothing more.
- The goal is to maximise the rate of learning by minimising the time to try things, so pick the assumption that would kill the idea if it were wrong.