MVP

MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is a term that is used to refer to the idea of releasing a simplified version of a great product.

An MVP guides you through the users’ needs and starts your relationship with your customers.

The goal is to get insight and feedback as quickly as possible from the Market. A Minimum Viable Product is the quick, easy and reliable way of gaining information about the idea or product.  

If you’re planning on having an MVP done, you’ve already identified the importance of having a Proof of Concept (POC) and a Prototype for your development plan. Hence, an MVP comes naturally as the next step. 

In the previous steps of your development plan, you’ve made sure your idea was feasible by creating your POC. Additionally, you have also fine-tuned your concept and visualized it through a Prototype.  

If you have gone through these steps successfully, you now feel confident that your project has value, and it’s time to validate your idea in the Market.

 

Building an MVP offers several benefits to your development plan: 

  • Allows you to test the demand for your product.
  • It saves you time, energy, and above all, money by building just what is needed and getting you to the initial customer feedback.  
  • It provides you with comprehensive knowledge about customers’ needs.  

An MVP should meet 3 simple goals:

  • Be very focused on the core functionalities.  
  • Aim to get customer feedback.  
  • Be the base for iteration and further development. 

Building an MVP is a partnership agreement between you and your Technical Suplier. Feel free to reach us, for a conversation on the topic.

 

 

Jointly you must go over 5 steps: 

 

1. Identify the Core Functionalities and Features and prioritize them 

The first step deals with features you want to have implemented in your product.  

By now, you already have envisioned your product in some form or shape. However, you need to list all the features, bells, and whistles. Once you have this done, you need to prioritize them. For this, a straightforward method is to use the MoSCoW approach.  

You should take all of the tasks and features and divide them into must-haves, should-haves, could-haves, and won’t-haves. In this Minimum Viable Product phase, it is required that you focus only on the highly ranked features that display the value of your product. Your technical partner should be able to assist you with this task. 

 

2. Select what type of MVP Approach you will follow 

All you have to do at this step is decide which type of MVP you’ll pick up moving forward and have it discussed with your technical partner.  

There are two MVP types: 

  • Low-fidelityAimed to know your future customer. It’s used to check if there is a problem to solve. It’s more of an exploratory exercise. 
  • High-fidelity: Used to get early adopters. It allows you to test your pricing and marketing strategy. 

3. Identify the Success criteria and how you’ll achieve Success 

Before you start building your MVP, you’ll need to know how you will evaluate it. How will you understand if your MVP is a success or a failure?  

Come up with a list of actionable metrics and success criteria you’ll need to be tracking.  

Is it by the number of visits to your landing page? Is it through the conversion rate? Or you want to understand the behaviour or interest of the user for certain functionalities? 

It would be best if you planned how you’d get your MVP validated. Is it by having 1000 users registered on your subscription product? Is it by having 100 sales, or simply by having 5000 visits to your site? Will you monitor usage using google analytics or tools like Mouseflow?  

Then think about how you’ll drive traffic to meet your success criteria and how much financial effort that will require. 

 

4. Launch It 

It’s time to launch your minimum viable product and start getting user feedback. Yes, you’ll probably be uncomfortable, to say the least, because what you’ve envisioned it’s not what you’re releasing.  However, by focusing only on the core of your product, you’re giving yourself the luxury of pivoting if your assumptions turn out not to be correct. And always remember how much you are saving. 

 

5. Measure It 

At this stage, you need to track the key metrics to evaluate your results. A negative result is also a result. An MVP aims to test your product with real users. Even if an MVP appeared to be unsuccessful, this is also a good sign. Remember, you can always pivot.  

Make sure you surround yourself with a team that supports you in building and tracking an MVP because that will be the base for your Great Product.