How do you release a MVP that you personally find inadequate then charge customers for it?
- I personally find a compact pickup truck inadequate for my commuting needs, but it is a viable product.
- I personally find coffee to be uninteresting and inadequate, but it is a viable and successful product.
To establish a brand, you are creating a value exchange — your product for the customer’s money. My definition of viable (as in MVP) is that the customer enters into the agreement not as a fool, but as a willing and satisfied participant. Not satisfied to their total desires, but satisfied to the amount you charged.
The second answer to your question is: don’t let your vision get in the way of offering a product that the customer will consider a good buy. This is the reason the word viable is in MVP.
Say I am hungry and you offer me a $3 high quality hot dog. I may desire a full steak dinner, but I am aware it would cost $50 and you may not be capable of providing that or could not maintain quality serving that. I am still quite likely to want to buy the hot dog.
Your job is to communicate to me as the customer that your brand is about great hot dogs at $3 today even if you have a vision to serve great steaks next year (at a higher price). The way you phrased your question, it sounds like you plan to tell your customers they are getting steak today when all you have is hot dogs. That would be bad for your brand and in my mind is NOT an MVP.
Your vision includes steaks. But an MVP is about selling great hot dogs. Don’t sell a vision you can’t offer yet. That’s the whole point of an MVP.