Prototype vs MVP in hardware

	Prototype	Minimum viable product (MVP)
Definition	An early working build used to test design and integration. In hardware it is the first of several increasingly production-like validation stages.	A bare-minimum build that tests whether the market wants the core function. Easy to ship in software; far harder when the "minimum" still requires real hardware.

The difference

A prototype answers whether the thing can be built and how it feels; an MVP answers whether anyone wants it. In software the two collapse into one shippable build. In hardware they cannot, because the minimum that reaches a customer still has to be a real, safe, manufacturable object. That is why Tangibles argues for decoupling the MVP: validate the software promise on borrowed or off-the-shelf hardware while the prototype programme runs on its own track.

Try it on your product

Electrum: the hardware-software boundary toolkit.

From the chapter of Tangibles that introduces these terms. Definitions are the book's glossary entries.

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