MVP stands for a minimum viable product. MVP is developed with must-have features in order to test the product’s fit in the market. When we talk about mobile app development, MVP is a basic version of an application.
An MVP is a method of testing the audience’s reaction to a new product, which is developed with the core functions and then receives feedback from early adopters to develop a fully-featured product afterward in the minimum viable product life cycle.
Minimum viable product development is a great way to test the product. Still, it does not mean that it is the minimum functionality to be developed, but it needs to be viable, too, in terms of design, reliability, and user needs.
How Did the Concept of MVP Get Started?
Eric Ries was the one who came up with the concept of a minimum viable product. It allows entrepreneurs to test new products by collecting the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.
In 2009 the concept of MVP gained popularity after Eric Ries described Lean Startup in his book.
What Is the Main Purpose of an MVP?
The objective of an MVP is to create a product using a limited budget and launch it rapidly. An MVP business allows you to collect user feedback on a product before its launch and use it in future developments. Using an MVP can get a feel for the right audience, develop ideas based on experience, and save time.
Thus, developing a minimum viable product means uncovering the right balance between what your business delivers to users, what users need etc. An MVP aims to test the hypothesis by decreasing errors by gathering quality feedback and targeting specific groups of users.
Statistics Showcasing the Need to Develop an MVP
● Due to the lengthy development process, about half of the new concepts are rejected since they cannot be proven at an early stage. Since premature scaling is to blame for the failure of more than 70% of all startups, a business must begin with tiny steps.
● Startups that work with a strategy and slowly consider every factor grow 20 times quicker than those that scale prematurely.
Why Do Companies Need First to Develop an MVP?
1. The primary benefit of creating an MVP is that it enables your startup to test the viability of its business ideas. By offering a limited set of features rather than a fully-fledged, feature-rich product, an organization can verify that its product idea connects with its target audience, and they can interact with the product and provide feedback for the same.
2. An MVP enables startups to test the market for their product before determining whether people will desire and use it without spending much money. Your startup can either redesign the product solution to provide additional market distinction or create something new based on these insights.
3. There is a lot of competition in the marketplace regarding launching an innovative product that will be an advantage to them among competitors. Thus, starting with the minimum viable development lets a business take a wise business decision at less cost and time.
4. It is good to test the viability of your idea early on before spending all of your money.
5. Lower app development costs result from faster development. You will get feedback on your mobile app as soon as it is made available to users. This implies that you may easily update your app and work on its improvement.
Is a Minimal Viable Product Divided Into Parts to Develop a Mobile App?
The minimum viable product is divided into 2 parts: business and marketing and proof or concept. In business and marketing, the MVP lets businesses research various new marketing strategies, advertisements and approaches for product advancement.
By developing an MVP, the business can get an insight into programming and designing a minimum feature set to develop a unique app.
Step-By-Step Process to Develop an MVP Product
The minimum viable product criteria are about putting your idea to the test, determining precisely what will work to target your clients, and ensuring the MVP satisfies their demands. It will be much simpler to complete the product and market it if everything has been done correctly.
Here are the necessary steps on how to build a minimum viable product successfully
● Market Research
Ideas can fail to match the demands of the market. Make sure an idea satisfies the intended audience’s needs before implementing it. Surveys should be conducted since the more data you have, the better your chances of success.
As per the survey by CB, insights startups fail because they lack focus on the market needs. It is a fact that if a product does not provide a solution, customers will not use it.
Don’t forget to keep an eye on what your rivals are offering and how you may make your proposal stand out from theirs.
● Try to Conceptualize Your Idea as per the Market Demands
You must try to understand whether your product offers any value to customers. Is your product offers benefits letting customer buy from you? You are on the right path if you get these answers, as you can define the app’s value proposition.
Thus, MVP in business must offer value to the people in its most basic state, so build an MVP per your target market needs.
● Design Process and User Flow
An essential MVP step is the design phase. So, while designing an app, it is best to consider users’ preferences, meaning you must design an app innovatively yet in a simple way to use.
You must consider the app from the consumers’ point of view, from installing it through completing the last step, such as ordering or receiving a product/service. This means the app must have simple user navigation. Additionally, user flow is crucial since it ensures nothing is overlooked while considering the product’s future success and its users’ enjoyment.
The user flow must be defined to identify the steps of the process. It is crucial to outline the steps required to accomplish the main goal. Instead of concentrating on features, the focus should be on fundamental activities like identifying and purchasing goods or managing and receiving orders.
● Focus on Important Features
Emphasize adding the features that the MVP will support. What do users want? This is a good question when deciding which MVP features to prioritize. Does this product provide them with any advantages?
Next, categorize the MVP features into three priority categories: high, medium, and low. Arranging these features in the product backlog is a crucial step. Now is the time to start creating an MVP to see how your future product will appear to users.
Furthermore, the minimum viable product tools will be taken care of by the development team.
Steve Jobs lost his job due to skipping the prototyping phase while creating the Apple Lisa. The outcome was disastrous because it could not generate a sizable number of sales.
● Launch Minimal Viable Product (MVP)
You can develop MVP once you have determined the key characteristics and discovered what the market wants. Also, keep in mind that an MVP must still satisfy the consumer’s needs and is not inferior to the final product in terms of quality. As a result, it must be user-friendly, interesting, appropriate, and not overloaded with features.
● Analyze User Feedback
Feedback is essential as it will help you develop a product per customers’ needs. Moreover, user feedback determines product acceptance and competitiveness in the market.
Mistakes You Must Avoid While Developing an MVP
The MVP development process lets you test the product’s value without spending much money and time. However, in order to create an MVP, you need to avoid a few things that might lead to a gigantic disaster.
● Choosing a wrong business idea
Before spending your time and efforts on developing a product, you must first decide whether the product you are planning to develop is worth considering or not. For that, you can look for the answers to these questions:
1. For whom are you developing the product?
2. What problem does your product solve?
3. Does your business idea the right way to solve the problem?
Before building the idea into reality, you must find the answers to every question. So, look for the right target audience whose problem can be solved by your business product/service.
● Overlooking the Prototype Stage
Turning an innovative concept into a finished product or service is essential to product development. The prototype, which concentrates on the “How” aspect of the product, sits between the concept and the finished product.
Thus, it is best to build an MVP, i.e., developing a version to help visualize the user experience of the Minimum viable product.
● Targeting the Wrong Customer Segment
The main reason for the product failure is that your product is not meeting the required customer’s needs.
So, after you develop an MVP prototype, it’s time to test and validate it. At this point, gathering feedback and opinions from the intended audience is important. Unless they are potential consumers, do not involve friends or family during this stage.
● Excessive Functionality
Your product fails if your user interface is poor and you have implemented too many functionalities in a small product. So, make sure your UI/UX is attractive and engaging with essential features.
● Choosing the Wrong Development Method
There are two approaches for MVP product development: Agile and waterfall. Agile is more effective than the waterfall method as it offers better results and speed to market.
How Much Does It Cost to Build an MVP?
The cost of MVP software development will depend upon the type of app and features you want to include in an app. Thus, if we take an approximation, the total time to develop an MVP is around 1920 hours in both Android and iOS platforms. The cost is somewhere around $159,00 to develop a complex product.
Further, the cost also depends on the development company and its location, as in India, the hourly rate is less than in the US or other countries.
How to Target the Right Market While Building an MVP?
● Examine the Competitors
To understand who the product will compete with, it is crucial to conduct extensive competition research. Building an MVP that doesn’t currently exist in the market is impossible. Even if a business has original ideas, it will still be entering a crowded and established market.
They must therefore determine how to position their Minimum Viable Product in a market where their rivals are already engaged in what they are trying to do.
● Geographically Divide Your Customers
The startup’s next job is to concentrate on geographic segmentation after identifying the ideal consumer base for the MVP. Companies use this useful tactic to familiarize themselves with the location-based characteristics that make up a particular target market. When developing an MVP, understanding the appropriate consumer base’s location might be crucial.
For better and more effective marketing, it is possible to address specific demands and cultural traits of target consumers in different geographic regions. Finding the answers to important questions like these will help the startup better build its MVP if they are aware of the geographic location of its target consumer.
To Sum Up
By providing workable solutions, an MVP seeks to address the main issues consumers have with the app. The ideal way to create the product within a set time frame is to brainstorm, plan, design, produce, test, and advertising. As a result, with this approach, you are maximizing your product value to potential clients.
Source: https://www.zenesys.com/blog/developing-a-minimum-viable-product-(mvp)
