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One of the more central concepts in product marketing is the minimum viable product.\u00a0 Especially when entering a new market, the question of what functionality to include in a product and what to leave out is critical to a timely and successful product launch. Leave out too much and the product flops.\u00a0 Put in more than is necessary and costs and schedule balloon.<\/p>\n

The second sin can in fact be worse than the first because you delay engaging real customers with a real product by bloating the requirements and hence learn more slowly what is really important. Many dramatically new products don\u2019t become highly successful until version 2 anyhow, so better to get started sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

The most stunning recent example of a minimum viable product is the Apple iPhone.\u00a0 While there are many marketing triumphs in the iPhone, including the fact that one cannot even activate the phone without downloading iTunes, I want to focus on the bold choices in product functionality, and lack thereof.\u00a0 While a lot has been written about what was included in the product, it is instructive from a marketing standpoint to look at what is not included. (This has analogies to strategic planning, where what is not in the plan can be more important than what is.)<\/p>\n