Your MVP isn't testing anything

Hey friends 👋Minimum Viable Product. Three words every founder knows, and almost nobody uses correctly. The “V” isn’t about whether the product exists—it’s about whether you can capture value back. Whether the market will actually pay. Whether you’re testing the riskiest assumption sitting between you and a working business model. Build without that framing, and you’re just... building. Optimizing something that may never have a buyer.This week, Cameron’s recording from a hotel room in Vegas (yes, really—there’s a marathon involved), and we dig into what an MVP actually is, why the “minimum lovable product” crowd is missing the point entirely, and what it looks like when founders get the test right—then fumble the follow-through anyway.We rate three scenarios on our conviction scale: an AI meal-planning app drowning in vanity metrics, a manual marketplace test with a very uncomfortable disintermediation signal, and a fraud-detection tool that had us fully on board until the last sentence. One of them earns an 8. One earns a 2. You’ll know which is which by the end.Cameron closes with his Mt. Charleston marathon prep (7,000 feet of downhill—his knees, but not his problem), and jdm gives a very late recommendation for Hijack on Apple TV. Better late than never.As always, thanks for listening.—Cameron and JDMTimestamps00:00 Introduction02:00 What an MVP actually is (and why MLP is a cope)10:30 Scenario 1: AI meal planning app18:15 Scenario 2: Manual gym-trainer matchmaking marketplace26:00 Scenario 3: E-commerce fraud detection SaaS34:30 Frivolous Thoughts This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit zerototraction.substack.com