See Growth hypothesis. In order to test a value hypothesis or growth hypothesis, the company builds the smallest possible product it can give to customers that will provide information to confirm or refute the hypothesis. In other words, the company mitigates risk and designs a better product by building it incrementally, starting with an absolute bare minimum usable version that provides the company information on the most important unknowns it faces. The more “minimal” the product, the less the company is risking, and the less it is paying to get the information it needs. Contrast this approach with the traditional approach of writing a requirements document defining a product that the company thinks customers want, then building the product, and only then finding out whether customers really want it.
— War and Peace and IT: Glossary, Mark Schwartz