

Ask HN: MVP vs. Landing page - vishalzone2002

I have lately noticed that a lot of people confuse or claim their landing page as MVP. There are websites like quickMVP that just make a landing page but call it MVP. 
 I am curious if that is the case. Doesn&#x27;t MVP refer to a hacked prototype which might not look good but does everything that the real product would do? While landing page is just single page webapp to market your idea?
Please share your thoughts on this.
======
kylelibra
Landing pages are not MVP's, end of story. Landing pages built pre-MVP are to
validate ideas. Getting a user to sign up for a service and use a service are
significantly different levels of validation.

------
vishalchandra
There are three different things, 1. MLP, 2. MVP, 3. MSP which kind of come in
order.

1 MLP is Minimum Learnable Product i.e. anything which helps you learn
something about what product you should be building. It can be an email that
you send out pitching your product or a landing page.

2\. MVP is Minimum Viable Product i.e. by viability we imply usability. If it
is not usable then it is not viable. So landing pages, wireframes are ruled
out. Mailers might work if you start to provide a service (which will get
eventually productized, automated, etc) via the mailer. So an ugly looking
product would also do as long as users find it usable.

3\. MSP is Minimum Saleable Product i.e. the product based on which you can
start making revenue (if you so wanted)

------
ABrandt
An MVP by definition is the very base point that you can convince people to
buy your wares. Whatever form that takes will depend on you and your market.
The point is to get whatever you have up there in your head and put it out
into the world; who cares what that looks like. Landing pages are so popular
because it's the path of least resistance in getting your idea in front of a
sizable audience. Going straight to a working prototype for your MVP without
hitting the landing page or comparable stage first sort of misses the mark on
what an MVP is all about.

Instead of thinking of an MVP as a single _thing_, we just made things easy
and called everything we did our "MVP" until we started doing recurring sales.

------
paulmatthijs
A Landing Page with good results can be seen as a validation for a MVP, but
can never be one itself. Unless your business is to harvest e-mail addresses
in which case you're 10 years late to the party ;)

I try to think of LP's as a catalyst instead of a validation. LP results make
sure you have a potential userbase to reach out to when you suddenly have your
MVP in your hands. It's like getting the cohorts ready for battle. Better line
them up upfront then scrambling for them when the heat is on. In that light
it's more a parallel path than a part of the MVP.

