Why you should consider an MVP and how to create an effective one?

If you are working on creating a digital product, it’s primordial to think about how to answer the user’s needs. An MVP (Minimum viable product) will allow you to learn if your product’s idea is successful and matches with the user’s expectations. It will help collect valuable feedback and confirm your business approach. 

Why should you build an MVP?

Before starting to design and develop your entire product, your business can benefit from launching an MVP first. Here are a few benefits:

• You can minimize development costs as you can quickly launch your MVP and gather valuable feedback from end-users.
  
• As you collect the user’s feedback, you’ll discover that certain features may have to be changed or even removed. With an MVP, you have room for flexibility and you can easily avoid costly mistakes that would have occurred with a complete app.
  
• User testing and feedback are like the sun to a flower. It makes you grow. Thanks to testing and feedback, you’ll be able to define your future plans and grow based on concrete and relevant data. You’ll be able to shift your course and features without complex changes.
  
• Your final product is not going to be developed by itself. As most entrepreneurs, you’ll probably face the moment when you’ll be looking for investors to support your project. An MVP can be strategic at this point as showcasing a working model of your product can influence investors’ decisions.

1. Define business/user's needs and know your market

Successful projects don’t happen by chance. They are built to bring solutions to a specific problem. That’s why you have to sit around the table, and define your business needs and talk with potential users to know about their expectations.

The probability that your product already exists on the market, is fairly high. Having competitors on the market is a good indicator. This means customers are demanding this kind of solution. So don’t give up your project but instead, research and learn from the market and try to improve your solution.

2. Phase your project with feature prioritization

By now, you should have a good view of the feature that should be developed to meet users’ needs. But your MVP can’t contain all of them. That’s why you’ll have to divide your features into categories.

1. The essentials
   
2. Nice to have
   
3. The extras
   

Then try to assign your features to those categories depending on their importance and value. When doing this, think about users. Put yourself in their shoes and try to understand if a certain feature can be a real added value while using your product.

In the end, you’ll have a clear view of which features should be developed for your MVP and even have some sort of phases for upcoming versions.

3. Define your MVP’s success criteria

You must define how you’re going to measure the success of your MVP.

• How many people downloaded your MVP? Did they provide feedback and was it relevant enough to make solid decisions for upcoming phases?
• What was the average usage time per user?
• Which features were used the most? The least?
• Which features received the most favorable feedback? The least?
  

Gather all this information and try to understand how it reflects your MVP’s success and how can you go forward.

4. Keep in mind that MVP doesn’t mean ugly, messy, and filled with bugs.

Yes, MVP stands for “Minimum viable product”. However, the minimum doesn’t mean garbage.

While creating an MVP, you should focus on the core features of your product. Those features should always bring relevant solutions to users. But it’s crucial for your MVP to be properly designed and developed. Don’t try to spare time by avoiding design phases. Make sure your app is performing and fast enough and avoid sloppy bugs.

In the end, your MVP must attract your end-users and potential investors. Your MVP is like a first date where it’s all about the first good impression.

5. Stick to the plans 

You might be tempted to add fancy features or postpone your MVP’s launch but that’s just not the objective. That would be counter-productive. You must stick to the line and launch your high-end MVP as expected. You’ll have enough time afterward to think about later phases and additional features, but your first mission is to test the core of your app and perfect it.

Final words

Don’t try to run before you can walk. That’s just the purpose of an MVP - Quickly launch a product based on your concept and test its success on the market.

An MVP will be the best way to test your product on a specific market. You will find out if your product is able to solve the user’s problems.

Your MVP is the first step of a long-term vision. It’s the foundation of your product so make sure it is future-proof, solid, and scalable.

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