An MVP (Minimum viable product) is a basic, launchable version of the product that supports minimal yet must-have features (which define its value proposition). It is built with the intent to enable faster time to market, attract early adopters, and achieve product-market fit from early on.
Purpose of an MVP The purpose of building an MVP is to launch a product quickly, based on an established idea, with a small budget. MVP development solutions allow businesses to collect users’ feedback for the primary product and include it in future iterations. With an MVP, one can find the right audience, pull the ideas based on experience, and save time. States Emphasizing the Need to Build an MVP
1. 90% of startups fail because they run out of cash
2. Startups that scale properly grow 20 times faster than those that scale prematurely. These stats explicitly show the benefits of beginning the new product development process with an MVP. However, there are more reasons that a MVP product development company has, to build a Minimum Viable Product:
• Creating an initial model that provides a starting point for discussions and offers clear visual points of reference.
• Conducting initial idea approval includes sharing the model with a few prospects and testing it with genuine users. This helps in understanding the issues that may become apparent with the product Starting the actual building process after dedicating months to improving and refining the software idea is a significant and motivating step toward building a fully-fledged product.
MVP is divided into two main parts:
• Business and Marketing: An MVP allows the business to launch a survey to identify the best marketing approaches and advertising platforms for the advancement of the product.
• Proof of Concept: By building an MVP, the business will gain critical technical insights from necessary programming and designing a minimum feature set, which, in turn, will help them make their app unique Steps to Building an MVP The MVP is all about testing your idea and figuring out what exactly will work to properly target your customers, and ensuring that the MVP meets their needs. If everything has been done correctly, then it will be much easier to finalize the product and market it later.
Below are the necessary steps to build an MVP:
Step 1: Market Research At times, it happens that ideas do not fit into the market needs. Before you initiate an idea, ensure that it fulfils the target users' needs. Conduct surveys, because the more information you have, the higher your chances are of success. Also, do not forget to keep an eye on what your competitors are offering, and how you can make your idea unique.
Step 2: Express Your Idea What value does your product offer to its users? How can it benefit them? Why would they buy your product? These are important questions to keep in mind to help better express your idea. You should also be clear about the essential estimations of your product. As MVP implies, introducing value to the people, first outline them and based on that develop your MVP. Step
3: Consider the Design Process & User Flow Design the app in a way that is convenient for users. You need to look at the app from the user's perspective, starting from opening the app to the final process, such as making a purchase or delivery. In addition, user flow is an important aspect as it ensures you do not miss anything while keeping the future product and its user satisfaction in mind.
Step 4: List the Project Features First of all, list all the features that you want to incorporate into your product before you start building the MVP; and, once the building process is completed, cross-check with the list. When you have a list of features for each stage, you then need to prioritize them. To prioritize the features, ask yourself questions such as, "What do my users want?" and "Am I offering them something beneficial?"
Step 5: Build your MVP Once you have decided upon the main features and have learned about the market needs, you can create your MVP. Keep in mind that a prototype is not lower quality than a final product, and still needs to fulfil your customer's needs. Therefore, it must be easy to use, engaging, and suitable for your users.
Step 6: Build, Measure, and Learn Everything is part of a process: first, the scope of work is defined, and the product is moved to the development stage. After the completion of product development, the product needs to be tested. Quality Assurance engineers, who work to improve the quality of the product (even if the product is not released) conduct the first testing stage.
Incubation Masters is a global organization, helping startups and business owners from all over the world to grow together through mentorship, global networking, consultancy, technology services and access to funding opportunities. Incubation Masters help smart cities and academic institutions to build and manage incubation centres and help them creating a sustainable startup ecosystem.
