Types of MVP: concierge, Wizard of Oz, landing pages and when to use each

What are the main types of MVP?

Six formats cover almost every early-stage test, and each one is good at answering one or two questions and poor at the rest. This is our side-by-side summary.

Which types of MVP need no code?

Concierge, landing page, video and piecemeal MVPs need little or no software. They are the fastest way to learn whether the problem exists and whether your pitch lands with the right people. Y Combinator's Michael Seibel makes the point that some startups can start with nothing more than a landing page and a spreadsheet.

Concierge MVP

You do by hand what the product will one day do, and the customer knows it. In Do Things that Don't Scale, Paul Graham recalls that Viaweb built online shops on behalf of merchants who were reluctant to sign up themselves, and that doing the work manually teaches you what to automate later (Graham, 2013).

Say you want to sell weekly training-and-nutrition plans to amateur triathletes. Before building an app, write the plans yourself for ten paying athletes and send them by email. If eight are still paying after a month, you have learned more than any survey could tell you.

Landing page and smoke test

A page describes the product as if it existed and asks for a concrete action. Buffer, the social media scheduling tool, put a plans-and-pricing page between its landing page and the sign-up form; clicks on paid plans signalled willingness to pay rather than idle curiosity (Buffer). How to build one that gives trustworthy answers is covered in landing pages to validate a startup idea.

Explainer video

Dropbox is the textbook case. As Eric Ries recounted in TechCrunch, Drew Houston recorded a roughly three-minute screencast showing how file syncing would work, before the product was open to everyone. According to Houston, the beta waiting list jumped from 5,000 to 75,000 people overnight.

It worked partly because it reached the right crowd, Digg's technical community, with in-jokes aimed squarely at them. Without distribution, an explainer video is just a file on a server.

Piecemeal MVP

You combine existing tools, such as a form builder, a spreadsheet, an automation service and a payment link, to deliver the full service. The customer sees something that works; you see exactly where the flow sticks. It holds up while volumes are small, which is all you need right now.

What is a Wizard of Oz MVP, and when should you use one?

It is an MVP where users interact with what looks like an automated system while a person quietly does the work behind it. The term comes from interface research: Nielsen Norman Group traces it to Jeff Kelley, who coined it in 1983 at Johns Hopkins while studying natural-language interfaces.

Graham's essay has a startup example too: early on, Stripe signed merchants up for traditional merchant accounts by hand, behind the scenes, so that accounts looked instant to users. Today it is the most honest way to test an AI product before you build the automation: a person does what the model will do, and you measure whether the result actually matters to people.

When is a single-feature MVP with real code worth it?

When you already have evidence that the problem exists and the open question is repeat usage: will people come back every week without being chased? A concierge test answers that poorly, because you are the one doing the work.

A single-feature MVP builds one function well, on foundations fit for real users: secure sign-in, protected data, backups and analytics. It is the most expensive type; the cost drivers are in MVP development cost and the full method in what is an MVP.

Which type of MVP works best for B2B?

Concierge and Wizard of Oz tend to win in B2B, because customers are few, each one is valuable and a direct relationship beats traffic. Ten companies using a hand-run service and asking for a contract are far stronger evidence than a thousand newsletter sign-ups.

The next step is often a pilot with one customer, which is not the same thing as an MVP; we explain the difference in MVP vs prototype vs proof of concept.

How do you choose the right type of MVP?

Start from the question you need to close, not from the tool you like best.

Tempted to skip the ladder and build straight away with AI tools? Read how to build an MVP with AI first: the prototype arrives quickly, but the question you need to answer has not changed.