Minimum Evolvable Product

Biological Parallel

An amoeba isn't trying to be a human—it's configured to survive its current environment while retaining the capacity to evolve into something more complex. The earliest life forms weren't optimized; they were evolvable. A startup's first product is the amoeba at the root of a phylogenetic tree: simple enough to survive initial contact with the environment, but carrying the genetic flexibility to branch into the mature forms—dogs, humans, sequoias—that emerge through millions of years of selection pressure. The MVP asks 'will this survive?' The MEP asks 'can this become something else based on what it learns?' Darwin's finches didn't arrive on the Galápagos with 18 different beak types. One ancestral population landed, and selection pressure from early adopters (the seeds available) shaped what they became.