I like your description of the steps involved, but I think there is just one point you have probably missed — the bit about minimum.

You could spend a LOT of time going through all the steps outlined and develop “this ‘best minimum subset of features’ which delivers enough value to your early customers to keep them happy and engaged” as you say.

To quote Eric Reis “What you think the MVP is is way too big; probably two orders of magnitude too many features”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FoCbbbcYT8

The point of an MVP is not to make customers happy; it is to learn about what they really want through feedback from what you have delivered, even if it doesn’t make them happy. In fact, especially if it doesn’t make them happy; that way you learn more :-)