An MVP is deliberately unfinished. Instead of spending a year building the full vision, you build the smallest thing that delivers the core value, put it in front of real people, and learn. The point is not the product. The point is the answer to a question: does anyone actually want this?
The term comes from startup methodology, but the thinking applies to almost anything: a landing page before the product, one pilot workshop before the course, a newsletter before the book.
Why you keep hearing it
Because it is startup vocabulary, and AI made everyone a startup. Tools like Lovable and Claude Code collapsed the cost of building an MVP from months of engineering to a focused weekend, so far more people are building and talking about them. "I shipped my MVP" is the builder crowd's "we opened the store".
What it means for you
The marketing version of this thinking is underused. Before a big campaign, product line or content bet, ask: what is the smallest real test that would tell us if this works? AI has made those small tests nearly free to produce. The discipline is in resisting the urge to polish before you have learned anything.