Article · ~6 min read

Viable Product vs. Minimal Product

Marty Cagan · Silicon Valley Product Group (Marty Cagan) Free Intermediate

This companion piece warns about the opposite failure: cutting so hard that the thing is minimal but not actually viable or usable. It helps you find the floor, the point below which the product stops being worth using. Read it alongside your cut list to check you have not gone too far.

• Minimal is not enough on its own; the product still has to be usable and worth choosing.
• Find the floor where cutting more would break the core value.
• Viability, not just smallness, is the real target for v1.