A minimum viable product (MVP) is a version of a new product that allows your team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. It is a key technique in the Lean Startup methodology.
Many CEOs and product managers come into the process with assumptions about their target market and market need. An MVP approach allows these assumptions to be tested and validated through customer feedback and insight.
1. Target audience
In order for a Minimum Viable Product to be effective, it has to appeal to its target audience. A number of teams are using landing pages and demos to test their product ideas, but they don’t qualify as an MVP because they aren’t designed for a specific market.
A well-designed UI is an important part of an MVP. It helps potential customers foresee what a full product will look like and how it will work.
Another benefit of an MVP is that it can validate business hypotheses quickly and with less risk than a full-fledged product. It also enables product managers to collect early feedback from users, accelerating the development process and improving the quality of future iterations. This approach saves businesses money and time.
2. Design
A Minimum Viable Product is designed based on business or customer insight. This approach can be used by product managers or CEOs who have a specific hypothesis but want to validate it through direct feedback from customers.
Using this method saves time and money that would be spent on building an incomplete or scopeless product. It also helps in finding out whether a particular concept is useful for the target audience.
It also allows for the development of products with core functionality to deal with market problems, while leaving out features that are just “nice to have.” and it requires rigor in prioritizing product requirements and the ability to make frequent iterations based on user feedback. A well-known example is Amazon’s initial start as an online book catalog.
3. Development
Creating a Minimum Viable Product allows companies to test the market and validate the technology prototype’s sale without dedicating a large development budget. It also helps them gain valuable user feedback and discover further iterations.
Its primary purpose is to ensure that a business’s ideas are actually viable and desirable to consumers. This approach is very much in line with the Lean Startup philosophy and maximizes information about customers with the least amount of resources invested.
Many famous companies have launched MVPs, including Dropbox and Amazon. The idea behind their initial releases was to test the market, and they used the feedback to build more sophisticated software products later on. This proved to be a great strategy that saved both time and money. It also allowed these companies to be ahead of their competition.
4. Testing
A minimum viable product is a prototype that enables companies to test and learn about their potential market before investing in a full-fledged product. This approach minimizes the risk of wasting time and resources on a product that will never reach customer expectations.
A key part of a minimum viable product is the ability to gather feedback from users and customers. This feedback can help developers identify and prioritize features for a future full-featured product.
A common pitfall is to deploy a minimally functional MVP without establishing a system to collect user feedback or other metrics. Another pitfall is to ignore valuable user feedback, which can result in costly mistakes. A good way to avoid these pitfalls is to conduct hallway testing, which provides a fast and informal method of gathering user feedback.
5. Implementation
Using a Minimum Viable Product approach is an effective way to validate your business ideas with direct customer insight. It reduces the risk of wasting time and money on an idea that doesn’t have the potential to succeed by providing early-stage customer feedback.
This process enables developers to focus on the most essential features and develop a prototype much faster than if they were to build a full-fledged software application with all the bells and whistles. This translates to better-quality results and a superior user experience.
Moreover, this type of development is typically cheaper than developing an app with all the requisite capabilities. This is because MVP applications are built using flexible, scalable technologies that can easily adapt to future changes in the product.
