The MVP also called Minimum Viable Product of any product is the simplest version of a product. It allows you to present and test your idea with potential customers. It is that basic version that includes only the core features needed for it to function but does not require a full scale development.
“The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”
Eric Ries, author of “The Lean Startup”
Read more : https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/book-summary-lean-startup-ca-b-m-aggarwal/
Instagram when it first launched had the basic functionality of sharing photos with filters and a social feed. It didn’t have all the features it has now, like Stories or Reels, but it was enough to test if people were interested in sharing photos with friends. Think of Uber, it was only enabling booking a trip from point a to point B. Another car sharing company, Careem, even did not build a backend algorithm for managing car booking. As MVP solution, they enabled customers to see cars on the app and call company call-centre to book a car. The team was manually dispatching cars to customers. This simplest form of MVP helped these companies validate their broader product and business idea.
Advantages of first building MVP
- Faster to Market: Since an MVP focuses on core features only, development time is reduced, allowing you to launch your product quicker and gain an early foothold in the market.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Building a minimal version of your product requires fewer resources, saving you money on development and allowing you to allocate funds more efficiently.
- Feedback Loop: By getting your product into the hands of users sooner, you can gather valuable feedback and insights to understand user needs and preferences, which can inform future development iterations.
- Risk Reduction: Since MVPs are designed to test assumptions and hypotheses, they help mitigate the risk of building a full-fledged product that may not resonate with users or meet market demands.
- Iterative Improvement: With feedback from users, you can continuously iterate and improve your product, adding features based on real-world usage and demand, leading to a more refined and user-centric final product.
- Early Adoption and Validation: Launching an MVP allows you to gauge user interest and validate your product concept before investing significant resources into development, ensuring that there is a demand for your offering.
- Competitive Advantage: Being first to market with a basic version of your product can give you a competitive edge, allowing you to establish your brand and capture market share while competitors are still in the development phase.
How to develop MVP for your product?
Here are the steps involved in developing an MVP of a product with examples and a use case
- Spot your Crowd: Start by thinking about the target audience for your product. For example, if you are developing an app for busy parents who are looking for outdoor sports activities for their kids. You can imagine a cohort of young parent, who are busy, have access to technology and want to find sporting activities for their kids.
- Map out the Must-Haves: You can carry out user story mapping exercise with your product team and stakeholders. This help will help you identify all the tasks and activities these young parents would like to do using the app. This knowledge is primarily based on customer and market research. After carrying out the user story mapping, you can work with team to identify the bare minimum, must-haves that should be included in MVP to test the functionality of the app. Read more : User story mapping and how to use it in Agile Development? Uber’s MVP included functionalities for users to request a ride and drivers to accept requests, focusing solely on the core of connecting riders with drivers.
- Sketch up a solution: Sketch out a basic preview of your app using a tool like Figma. Let the user navigate through the app during the user testing. This will help you identify friction points and you may improve the design to improve user experience.
- Dropbox initially created a video demonstration showcasing its file storage and sharing concept before building the actual product.
- Develop the MVP: Build the MVP with the bare necessities—let users browse activities, find the price and contact details and steps to book the activity. Keep it clean and user-friendly.
- Test Drive with Real Folks: Get hold of your target users and carrying user testing of the actual MVP.
- Tweak based on Feedback: Use the feedback to fine-tune your app. Maybe users want more customization or crave extra features like nutritional info for recipes. Adapt your app accordingly.
- Grow gradually: Once your Sports finder app is polished based on feedback, start expanding. Add features like booking, online payment with pals or providing rating to a coach or against an activity, and broaden your user base beyond the initial set of planned users.
As Steve Blank, entrepreneur and author, excellently summarizes: “A minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”
