What is an MVP, and why is it the right way to build new products?
A Minimum Viable Product, or MVP, is a product development strategy in which a new product is launched early into the market with only the most essential functions. This enables founders to capture early feedback for a demand/feedback-driven product.
Since the book – The Lean Startup by Eric Ries became popular, the concept of Minimum Viable Product has become very popular for developing products.
It is not a good idea to build a product and wait for the customers to come and pay for it. You need to make it worth their use. Before developing the final product, you should first check what customers need from the final product. This is where the continuous build-test-feedback-repeat process comes handy once you have an MVP in your hands.
MVPs are less expensive, take less time and are less distracting than full-fledged products. They allow you to analyze the market while saving money and time. This type of method is used by many popular companies to build and improve on successful products, like Amazon, Facebook, Uber etc.
This post will help you give more knowledge about MVP for software development. Let us discuss more. 👇🏿
Importance of being Viable while building your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for web and mobile app development
The word “Viable” is very important in MVP. Your product needs to be viable. However small a product is or fasts it is released to the market, it needs to be usable and beneficial to your customer.
Due to rising competition, building products via the MVP way has become important for the success of your application. An MVP provides you with the quickest route to market and access to real-world consumer feedback to help you evaluate your product.
Image design by Cliffex
MVP provides a fast way to receive feedback and build a better product!
A good web or mobile application needs months of preparation, planning, design and development. Trying to solve more than one problem or meet too many goals at a time means that it will take longer to build the product. The longer the time, the more likely it becomes to predict the outcome. This is not a good method to build web and mobile applications. Building an MVP will give you the quickest and most accurate way to obtain customer feedback on your apps. All you have to do is focus on developing only those features that will solve a problem for your consumers. No bells and whistles.
Process of Building an MVP
Even though the MVP has a limited set of functionality, preparing activities before development is crucial. The difficulty is where to begin and construct a minimal viable product. So, let’s look at the MVP development process from start to finish.
It would help if you went through the following stages when producing a minimum viable product:
Market Research-
Market research is an essential component of any successful enterprise. Primarily do the homework, if you don’t want to lose money and time. Make sure your minimum viable product (MVP) solves a problem in an elegant way.
Describe the Features and Scope-
Just like you need a blueprint to start the construction of a building. You need specifications to detail all the nooks and crannies of your MVP. When establishing an MVP for a startup, you must document a list of features (Scope). So, for the planning phase, make a list of all the desired characteristics of your upcoming app.
If you do not have a feature list or specifications at hand. Cliffex can help you with a Discovery phase that helps us understand your vision, brainstorm ideas, and provide solutions. The end result is a document that details the exact specifications of your MVP.
MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product, which means you don’t have to list all complex features and fancy designs at once. Focus on solving one problem, elegantly.
Build and launch-
You can start working on your MVP after you have its specifications. So, how can you develop and launch a fruitful minimal viable product that would attract both customers and investors? Keep in mind that to obtain professional and concise development, you must focus on a happy medium.
In terms of functionality, your MVP shouldn’t be overburdened. Simultaneously, it should be of excellent quality, correcting any faults as soon as possible to avoid immediate failure. It must also attract clients with its simplicity and address their primary issues.
Analyze the Feedback-
The real goal of an MVP is to find a market fit and gather good market feedback. You can use the feedback to arrive at conclusions about additional design elements or bugs. As a result, your MVP’s early adopters will serve as idea generators and testers.
When creating an MVP, keep in mind the most important rule: you should create a well-balanced product that meets your customers’ needs. Then, based on the input from the first users and the gathered analytical data, you can continue the development flow and add more functionality.
Additionally, be prepared to make ongoing changes and enhancements to the launched MVP to make it more relevant to your target market.
Estimated Time and Money to develop MVP!
Most software consulting firms expect that creating an MVP will take 3 to 6 months. This is highly dependent on the kind of product you want to make. The complexity of the MVP process could take up to 6 months. We do not recommend building an MVP for more than 6 months. This is because, in Startup years, 6 months is a long time to execute a vision. If you plan to build an MVP and launch in 7 or 10 months, the market would have changed significantly by the time you release.
The procedures or paths to take when creating the MVP are standard across all products but the implementation changes based on the industry, type and complexity of the product.
Products that started with a simple MVP and improved based on market feedback to achieve success
Amazon-
Amazon is an example of a successful MVP launch that improved with each iteration and market feedback. Amazon shows us how good UI and UX should impact customer ease of use and benefit. Jeff Bezos had started an online bookshop in early 1990. He began to consider a list of concepts that could sell well on the Internet to build an MVP. He narrowed the choices from 20 product categories to 5 – DVDs, books, software, computers, and even compact discs. In the end, Jeff Bezos realized that books are more profitable on the Internet to achieve product success. He built upon that success and added more products as customers matured and expected more from the portal. Now, Amazon has become the world’s no. 1 E.commerce site with millions of products.
Image Source – https://www.firstversions.com/2016/07/amazon.html
Twitter
The most popular social media platform is Twitter. Initially, it was known as “twttr,” used internally. They developed an SMS-based messaging medium. Employees paid hundreds of dollars in SMS fees to post to the forum to test it among users. But finally, Twitter was released and got successful in its 2006 release. In the past year and now, the number of Twitter users increased, and now it’s become the second most popular social platform.
Image Source – https://www.firstversions.com/2015/07/twitter.html#:~:text=Work%20on%20the%20project%20started,publicly%20on%20July%2015%2C%202006
Facebook
The original plan for Mark Zuckerberg was to connect everyone on campus. He began with Facemash, which allowed users to compare two photos and determine who was ‘hot’ and who wasn’t. That was his MVP.
Then it grew into Thefacebook.com, a true social media product. Students from Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, and Yale were among the four leading American colleges that adopted it. They opened access to everyone after a year of testing with segmented audiences, and that is how Facebook we know today began.
Image Source – https://www.firstversions.com/2015/04/facebook.html#:~:text=Set%20up%20as%20a%20type,Mark%20Zuckerberg%20launched%20%22Thefacebook%22.
About Cliffex
Cliffex is an IT consulting firm specialized in bringing new ideas to life. We’ve supported startups and organizations of all sizes in building cutting-edge technology. We offer a full variety of IT services and custom web and mobile solutions. We aid in achieving competitive advantages by improving workflow efficiency, addressing business difficulties, and gaining competitive advantages
Cliffex employs more than 70 in-house experts, including developers, UI/UX designers, QA engineers, copywriters, illustrators, and project managers.
Collaboration with Cliffex has several advantages:-
- A free chat with one of our Business Consultants and Analysts regarding your project is available upon request. MVP development, custom app development, maintenance, and legacy system modernization
- At all stages, product quality is monitored and controlled.
- Cutting-edge technology and creative design
- Teams of IT experts who are adaptable, well-trained, and qualified
- A thorough discussion with one of our Project Managers
Conclusion –
MVPs are a quick and low-cost way to test an idea and learn what users think about your product. Like Amazon, Twitter, or Facebook, every firm starts with a basic version with a limited set of functionality. Many examples of minimum viable products exist globally, where innovative products began as a small, insane concept to make life easier.
You can hire a team of in-house developers, designers and QAs or outsource the process if you desire to produce an MVP. For MVP product development, we always recommend using an off-site team. It is seamless, low risk, and cost-effective.
FAQ-
- What is MVP in app development?
MVP is a development method in which only the core functionalities are created to solve a specific problem and satisfy early adopters. An MVP is essentially the basic model of your product that will achieve the primary goal you want to achieve. - What is the significance of MVP?
An MVP enables organisations to test market demand for their product, determining whether potential users require and will use the product without investing large sums of money. - What exactly is an MVP roadmap?
A minimum viable product can provide product value with minimal effort. It aids in testing an idea’s viability and paves the way for the features that product managers should prioritise to help achieve product success. In short, it is all about determining your target customers’ needs. - Why should you outsource MVP app development?
Because you have access to experts with experience and expertise, outsourcing MVP development may result in better results. It also saves significant time and money that would otherwise spend on technical studies, consultation, and decision-making.