he Minimum Viable Product is the smallest thing you can build that will create the value you’ve promised to your market. But nowhere in that definition does it say how much of that offering has to be real. If you’re considering building a ride-sharing service, for example, you can try to connect drivers and passengers the old-fashioned way: by hand.
This is a concierge approach. It recognizes that sometimes, building a product—even a minimal one—isn’t worth the investment. The risk you’re investigating is, “Will people accept rides from others?” It’s emphatically not, “Can I build software to match drivers and passengers?” A Concierge MVP won’t scale, but it’s fast and easy in the short term.