If DAU's and consistent usage metrics are often the go/no go for seed or A rounds, then why should a user care one bit about our "learning" and iteration? The days of iterating around your weak mvp are over in my opinion. Users no longer care about our learning (rapid iteration) so don't kid yourself! Minimum viable doesn't mean crap, sloppy, weak features, no real value. Here's why, a weak mvp can end up being a totally false negative and shut critical funding doors for no good reason.

Example 1: A smart messenger app is being developed for a huge industry segment, designed to become a slack kind of platform for a community of users that is not very technical, yet they are super independent and very old school. The value prop is straight forward: connect, inform, empower users in the app. Build a community with a tool that's simple, smart, provides everyday value and utility. Got it...

The reality is that everyday users (even if they are not technically astute) are spoiled with great apps, smart functionality, elegant yet simple UI/UX. The days of the bare bones MVP (ala 2005) are over. Users have no desire to look at your crap, so don't make them and don't expect their support. Minimum viable must be minimum valued, at the very least. Make it smart, simple, valuable right out of the box. Make one or two very direct, highly valuable features that are super easy to use. The learning will come from how they use it, not if they even bother to use it because it's not good enough. Rule 2, you're not building for yourself, so even if you will tolerate your ugly child, nobody else will.

We have evolved as a developer community and as an end user community. The quality and functional design of great apps is now ubiquitous. Venture knows this as well, so despite the fact that we all need to rapidly release, learn and repeat, we also need to make sure that we give the user a true reason to even TRY our MVP. The real lesson is that you really don't want a false negative on the score board early on. Knowledge, learning, solid DAU's is your best ammunition to keep funding active so you can continue to learn. Chance are you'll get it right eventually, but if users don't see immediate value, chances are they won't come back to help and tell you why, and chances are even better that your funding won't too...