It’s time to retire the idea of the “MVP” from the product design and product management lexicon.

The MVP rose to prominence during an era of cheap capital and high tolerance for risk, when speed mattered more than quality, and failure was seen as a feature, not a flaw.

That era is over.

Today, budgets are tighter, scrutiny is sharper, and the cost of getting it wrong is far too high.

The MVP isn’t just outdated. It’s no longer acceptable.

The cost of disposable roadmaps

At the height of the MVP era, it became disturbingly normal for product organizations to treat the first year—or even two—of their roadmap as disposable.

The thinking: get something out, see what sticks, clean it up later.

Teams developed a tolerance for low adoption, clumsy product design, a mixed bag of “maybe” features, and workflows held together with duct tape.

It was a culture of “we’ll fix it eventually.” And for a while, that was fine.

But not anymore.

The stakes are higher than ever

The business appetite for absorbing the cost—and brand erosion—of MVP-era thinking is shrinking fast.

Even small go-to-market failures now bring scrutiny from finance and leadership.

It’s not just the product that gets questioned—it’s the people, the strategy, and the budget behind it.

And that kind of spotlight? It doesn’t fade quickly.

What today’s product roadmaps demand

The reality is that today’s product roadmaps must account for revenue, adoption based on loyalty, and growth from day one of the first release through market maturity.

In this landscape, version one can’t be a throwaway.

The first release must intelligently match core user needs while fully upholding modern experience strategy and design best practices.

Successfully bringing a new product to market in this post-MVP landscape requires more than a strong idea—it demands alignment, rigor, and real execution maturity.

Here’s what that looks like:

1. A shared vision grounded in real insight: a clear understanding of users’ needs, behaviors, and mindsets, with buy-in from top leadership down to junior devs.
2. Meaningful success criteria and well-chosen KPIs that support continuous measurement and root-cause analysis.
3. A razor-sharp, validated value proposition, ideally in the customer’s own words and grounded in their actual behavior.
4. Tight collaboration across product, strategy, design, and engineering, eliminating compromises that would weaken the go-to-market experience.
5. A ready, aligned team, high-skill and high-trust, and committed to open communication, design excellence, and executional quality.

Momentum doesn’t end at launch

Even after the first release is off the starting line and in the race, staying competitive requires staying alert.

The team must constantly listen for user signals—spotting gaps, refining experiences, and optimizing workflows in real time.

The ability to identify and act on issues quickly is what keeps a product in the race and pushing for the podium, rather than running out of gas or veering into a dead end.

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Walking our talk:

We’ve helped several clients transition from MVP thinking to launch strategies based on user insights, cross-functional alignment, and adoption-first design.

Schwab’s account summary experience was a high-visibility asset, used by millions of investors but long overdue for reinvention. After multiple stalled attempts, the team needed a first release they could stand behind.

We helped reframe the problem, center the design around real user behavior, and co-create a new interface that reduced cognitive load, improved the user experience, and increased user adoption. The effort also rebuilt trust across internal teams and with leadership.

It wasn’t launched as a “starter.” It was launched to succeed.

One final thought

We’re not suggesting you chase perfection, or overbuild, or slow everything down in the name of polish.

What we are suggesting: What gets released first should reflect what matters most to users, teams, and the business. And that it’s possible to get that right, even on the first go.