"MVS is about focusing on a market segment of potential customers who have the same needs to which you can align. Defining and focusing on your MVS is vital because without it, potential users who have divergent needs will quickly pull your MVP in many different directions."

"That sucking sound won’t just be heard in product development, it will also get amplified in any Go To Market (GTM) activities, and then later on in service and support, potentially paralyzing your business model."

"Instead, if they had the same needs and solutions, guess what: They may even be able to support each other in a customer community."

"Find the same, similar or very closely-related needs"

"Focus on finding a set of customers who have the same (or similar) need, pain or problem."

"For starters, customers don’t think in terms of features. They think in terms of their own business pain and need."

"Your MVS might be a vertical, or be partly defined within a vertical, but it needn’t be."

"And for an MVS you’d want to keep breaking it down further until you found a set of potential customers with the same need."

"At this point I’d encourage you to prioritize by other attributes such as how valuable your solution is to each potential MVS."

"The “minimum” part of the MVS is about keeping your segment as small as possible to be able to dominate it with your limited startup resources. Once you dominate it, you can claim leadership. Even if this leadership is just in your MVS, it’s valuable to your positioning and credibility for the next segment you want to go after."

"Viable = where you can succeed with your MVP"

"As you ponder your MVP, look at which segment will have the least product requirements."

"Iterate your MVS, together with your MVP"

"How tightly knit are the customers in your segment?"

"Do they talk to each other in (for example) community forums, trade associations and the like? The closer tied they are, the more likely they are to reference each other efficiently. Think of this as the beginning of your viral loop."