The MVP—Minimum Viable Product—has become gospel in startup circles. Build fast, test fast, fail fast. But in today’s crowded market, viability alone won’t cut it. Customers have too many options. Attention is short. If your product doesn’t spark delight from the first click, you’ll lose users before you can learn anything. Enter the MLP: Minimum Lovable Product. It’s the evolution of MVP thinking, built not just to function, but to resonate.

In this article, we’ll explore why the MVP playbook is broken, how the MLP framework fixes it, and what you need to ship products that win hearts, not just wallets.

MVP: A Useful but Incomplete Concept

The MVP was born out of lean startup thinking: build the smallest possible version of your product that can deliver value. Its goal is speed to market and fast learning. However, MVPs often fall short in today’s experience-driven environment.

They’re frequently ugly, clunky, or incomplete, functioning enough to work but not well enough to excite. MVPs rarely reflect the emotional core of the product. Customers don’t want to be test subjects—they want to feel something. An MVP might tell you if someone will click. An MLP …