No team wants to invest time, money, and resources into a product without a reason to believe it will pay off.
And yet inside Beauty and CPG product development, that instinct creates a contradiction of its own:
That same desire for proof that protects good decisions can also delay them.
Teams often struggle with knowing when they have enough information to make a decision. It’s not always about whether more data is required.
It’s a different question:
What level of proof does this decision actually require?
Because once that becomes the question, the standard for proof changes.
Reframing MVP Before the Product
We’re familiar with MVP also known as minimum viable product. However, throughout decision-making, the harder contradiction to manage is knowing when you have enough proof to make a decision throughout product development.
So here, MVP means something different:
Minimum Viable Proof
The minimum level of proof required to justify moving forward responsibly. And in practice, it rarely looks the way teams expect.
The Same Standard Does Not Apply to Every Decision
Not every product requires the same level of proof for decision-making.
Some products are extensions of what the brand is already known for:
- They fit established consumer behavior.
- They fit what consumers already expect from the brand.
Others introduce something new to consumers:
- They ask consumers to accept something new.
- They require a larger commitment from the business.
Treating these the same is how teams end up under-proofing some products and over-proofing others. The level of proof varies depending on what the product introduces to the market, the brand, and the portfolio.
The Goal Is Enough Information to Decide
Gathering proof in the early stages is often understood as accumulation, but proof is not the maximum amount of data you can gather.
It is the minimum amount of evidence required to justify the next level of commitment.
That changes the question from “How much proof do we have?” to “What does this decision actually require?”.
What Determines How Much Proof You Need
The level of proof required varies depending on what the product introduces into the market.
It scales with:
- Novelty: How much is actually new
- Strategic Importance: How central the launch is
- Role in the Portfolio: Growth driver vs supporting extension
- Cost of Being Wrong: What failure would cost the business
- Irreversibility: How hard it is to correct later
The burden of proof should scale based on the decision.
You Are Rarely Starting from Zero
Teams are rarely starting from zero. The proof often exists through various reference points.
Sometimes it lives internally in:
- Prior launches
- Known category behaviors
- Established consumer insights
Sometimes it lives externally in:
- Category, product, and market dynamics
- Competitor’s positioning
- What consumers already recognize and accept as normal
Either way, the work is not to prove everything again. It’s to identify any remaining uncertainty and determine that level of evidence that’s required to address it.
The Decision Determines the Burden of Proof
It increases when:
- Something genuinely new is being introduced
- When the product asks the consumer to reinterpret the brand
- When the business is making a visible or irreversible bet
- When failure carries a meaningful cost
It decreases when:
- The product operates within validated behavior
- When it reinforces what is already understood
- When the uncertainty is narrow and contained
- When existing knowledge already answers most of the question
At that point, the work is matching the level of proof to the actual risk of the decision.
Knowing When You Have Enough
Speed and volume can both feel justified when the stakes are high however, both can create downstream problems.
- Under-proofing: Moving quickly without addressing the core uncertainty.
- Over-proofing: Continuing to gather proof after the core uncertainty has already been identified.
Addressing the uncertainty is about understanding when the amount of proof you have is sufficient for the decision being made. Proof is only useful when it changes what you’re willing to do next.
Strategic Decision-Making Does Not Require Complete Certainty
Minimum viable proof is about understanding the level of risk in comparison to the decision being made. The strongest teams aren’t trying to prove everything equally.
They’re deciding:
- What is already known?
- What needs to be known?
- What level of uncertainty they are willing to move forward with?
Strategic decision-making in product development doesn’t come from eliminating uncertainty. It comes from knowing how much uncertainty a decision can tolerate.
—by THE BUILD BRIEF