Is the Lean Startup, the ship fast an MVP and iterate still valid?

If you are not releasing fast feel free to read (re read) advice from YC. I have been an engineer mindset entrepreneur all my 14 years of professional life. In 2020 I broke that mindset and I am, for the first time, seeing customers in a B2B product that I have not even created.

Absolutely it is still valid. Releasing an MVP so that you can engage with early adopters is still a good way to test alignment with your customers. It’s still helpful in checking product/market fit and for prioritizing future product development tasks. The tricky part is getting your MVP to be noticed when so many alternatives exist in most use cases. Good luck!

I think MVPs are still valid. Finding the core and real value of your product / service is key to building and growing, and an MVP can give us that.

It depends how you define MVP. I don't think releasing a product that has all of the features you want, hacked together, and kind of working is a viable option. There are too many half baked products released every day. However, I think building the most differentiating feature extremely well and releasing it to see if it gets traction can work. If you can't get traction with your most important feature, adding a bunch more isn't going to help you stand out from what already exists.

My opinion is that it is 100% valid. MVP != poor quality. I think if you have an idea you need to realise it and building an MVP is the best way to do that. Most ideas centre around a single idea/theme. Make your product execute that idea well then add all the bells and whistles after.