Startups are no doubt standout idea generator. However, their idea has to go through different layers of validation, of which market research is the major key area. It stands a challenge for companies to accurately figure out what users might like or expect w.r.t their unique offerings.
For a business, ‘offerings’ and ‘expectations’ are two different aspects that requires a firm equation. Thus, to minimize the concern of product failure, and save money and resources, the best approach could be to go with an MVP solution. Building an MVP can support in maintaining the right balance between offering and expectation, as well as allow more time to study the market and user response to upgrade the MVP app.
Such an approach involves minimum expense, time, and resources to release the app in the market.
Creating an MVP is the crucial phase for any web and mobile app development process. It validates the idea and endows a sense of relief. So, let’s learn step-by-step “how to design a Minimum Viable Product”.
What is the Minimum Viable Product?
MVP i.e. Minimum Viable Product is created and released with minimum yet valuable functionalities that an app idea requires to work smoothly, rather than presenting a full-fledged solution.The term ‘MVP or Minimum Viable Product’ was first coined in 2001 by ‘Frank Robinson’. The MVP follows the approach of building a product with basic functional features. Once the user tries the product and submit their positive or negative feedback based on their experience, these details are collected to infuse further updates on the app as the user requires.When the product is getting acceptance and recognition in the market, the updates in the product or apps are added periodically to engage the users by presenting something new and unique on every stage. On the other hand, if the MVP version fails to gain sizeable user traction, then the low cost prototype gives you an early alert to shut the project down at the primary stage, instead of wasting time, money, and resources on maturing stages.
Basically, companies prefer to build MVP, as it aims to provide immediate value, minimize development costs, optimize the business processes, and make the product smarter with time. In a nutshell, the MVP app is mainly focused on;
- Testing the feasibility of a product at a minimum expense.
- Gather data and feedback early on stage that can be applied to improve processes.
- Spending less money on developing the product.
- Quick delivery of the product that can provide the solution to its user’s problem.
Types of MVP Apps
Broadly, the MVPs are divided into two categories i.e. low-fidelity MVP and high-fidelity MVP.
A low-fidelity MVP is designed to validate the app idea in the target groups. It enables to gain enhanced customer understanding and check whether people are ready to spend money on your idea or not. It is comparatively easy to develop and provides the basic idea of the requirements of the target market.
On the other hand, a high-fidelity MVP checks whether the proposed app is willing to provide the solution for the claimed problems or not. The high-fidelity MVPs collect real user feedbacks, which supports to develop the product. As the users require a simple, user-friendly, and guided approach to use the platform effectively.
Read Also: Low-fidelity vs. High-fidelity Design Prototypes
Types of MVP Approaches
- “The Fake Door” MVP Approach
It is also known as ‘audience building MVP’ or ‘an MVP before the MVP’. It is a marketing technique where entrepreneurs can market their product or create a buzz in the market before developing the product. Email, advertisement campaigns, and landing pages are a few ways which can be used to grab people’s attention and seek their opinion. Based on that one can save the reviewer’s contact details and intimate them once the product is launched.
- Landing Page MVP Approach
This approach supports the idea of developing a simple website, which could be a landing page that defines the product’s brief introduction and has a clear CTA button (Call To Action). Once the user clicks on the CTA button, they receive a message that the product/service is not available right now and they can sign in for a reminder or pre-order service. The interest of the user can conclude the hypothesis that the particular product is demanded in the market and can go with the business app idea.
- The Wizard of OZ MVP Approach
It is also known as ‘Flintstone MVP’, it creates the illusion that product is fully-functional, but behind the scene it relies on manpower to ensure the solution delivery. For instance, as the cartoon character Flintstone always tries to present an illusion that they have a real car, likewise the Wizard of OZ implements this trick to pretend things are happening, but in reality, it’s not. It means that all the actions are performed manually but pretending that everything is automated enough to handle independently.
Concierge MVP is the new version of The Wizard of OZ. But it too follows manual work and gives it an impression of an automated program until the final automated version is developed and validated. But, here the only difference is that the user is already aware of this tiny trick, unlike in the Wizard of OZ approach.
The Piecemeal approach delivers value by using existing tools, it doesn’t prefer to build a custom solution to yield the result. Such as using simple software and handling it manually, then after getting feedback to integrate necessary functionalities. For instance, Groupon launched on WordPress where pictures of meal deals were posted manually every day. The Groupon founder used to post PDF documents to push offers by using AppleScript and emailing it via. Apple Mail.
How to Build A Minimum Viable Product?
One of the major concern for any entrepreneur is, how to build a minimum viable product?
Well, don’t just rush into hiring the development team at first. There are various factors that need to be considered before getting into the hiring and development phase.
To clear out the doubts and provide a well-informed process, we have curated a detailed guide on how to build an MVP with maximum efficiency.
Step #1: Identify the Problem
As per the numerous market study, a majority of startups fail because of the inability to propose a valuable and required solution for the real-world problem to gain enough traction from customers and survive in the competitive market.
Therefore, to avoid the chances of failure, it is crucial to analyze the market gaps and define the accurate problem that the startup aims to propose a solution for that. By following different paths the product’s key value proposition can be identified, it includes personal experience, discussion with friends, colleagues, and partners, exploring social media platforms, and going through different product reviews.
Step #2: Conduct the Detailed Market Research
To build an MVP and validate your business idea, market research is the major aspect to identify the feasible solutions, market requirements, target market, competitors, and other valuable details.
In the initial phase, it is necessary to analyze the market and study the competitors as well. It is very effective to analyze the competitors and their business processes, it will help to figure out their blind spots. These will work as an opportunity for your business idea to identify the most valuable and user-centric solutions that directly target the customer’s needs.
One of the suitable techniques to study competitors is the SWOT analysis. It is a very efficient tactic to define the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats of your business idea to remain competitive in the market from the very first day, you define your business idea.
Step #3: List out Project Features and Prioritize Them
The most common problem with MVP development is the abundance of product features that can be eliminated in the first version. Hence, while building an MVP, the functionality can be categorized into multiple updates, so initially go with only essential features for the launch.
The features can be prioritized under their influence value, as to what extent the features can affect the product’s value.
Functionalities that have minimal or almost negligible influence on the app’s value should be postponed, whereas the features that might influence the value can also be held on or replaced with some other feature.
Step #4: Develop the MVP
After defining and filtering the key features and analyzing the competitive market, it can be the right time to build an MVP prototype. This Minimum Viable Product will lead to gathering feedback and studying user experience and behavior. However, to build the MVP, it is totally up to the owner to hire an MVP development company or prefer an in-house team.
Making the MVP prototype should not be of poor quality; it should fulfil the proposed idea and satisfy user requirements, despite infusing the minimum features in the product.
Apart from that, in the development phase ensure the product is easy to use, has appealing UI/UX, and should target the proposed ‘pain point’ which justifies the product’s existence, by following a rigorous testing process.
Step #5: Launch, Get Feedback, and Iterate
After following all the above steps and successfully developing the MVP prototype, now it’s time to launch or deploy the solution in the real-world market. The released product will support measuring the results by getting feedback.
Once the product is in the user’s hands, then its real test gets initiated and will determine the future direction of product development. Analyze carefully the user’s feedback, evidently, you can’t satisfy the expectations of each user, despite that their feedback can give a precise idea on how to take ahead your product or what new features could be introduced.
Tweaking and modifying is part of any MVP development process, as the product should continue to improve as a full-fledged, feature-rich final product.
Mistakes to Avoid While Building a MVP
To build an MVP, it is important to understand that the MVP can’t be improved until you analyze the hidden pitfalls. So, let’s learn about the most widespread development mistakes to avoid while building a Minimum Viable Product.
1. Defining Incorrect Product Strategy
The product strategies are high-level business planning that is implemented in a guided manner to accomplish product goals. Without a proper product strategy, the MVP or app development will only be like the wastage of resources on unproductive things.
Therefore, to avoid the wastage of money, time, and resources in the business, one can take preventive steps to avoid all this by; planning each step, defining your goals, and categorizing it into multiple phases, and by avoiding any abrupt decision.
2. Targeting Wrong Customer Segment
Once after developing and deploying the MVP prototype, it is important to gain users’ feedback and comments from the target audience. However, consider the fact that everyone is not under the category of the targeted user.
Likewise, for any feedback or comment on your product, do not seek it from friends or relatives. They can be partial or soft with you, so to avoid irrelevant feedback only go with the neutral audience that can lead you to get the genuine feedback and help you to improve the product quality.
3. Feature Overloading
MVP is only built to support minimum and vital functionalities, despite that many businesses overload the product with features, and which is the worst thing to do. Rather than overloading the product with features, focus on core features that resemble the main process of your app, follow your business goal, and keep the platform working.
Overloading the platform with not-so-important features delays the product release and makes rework challenges.
4. Lack of Feedback
You can never analyze the user’s requirements and the problems they are facing with the app without taking their opinion. The users are the ones that are trying the initial version of the product, and the businesses can take their suggestions in enhancing the platform.
It is not necessary to take all the reviews and suggestions and implement them with the product, but some valuable feedback can be implemented and the rest can receive a response from the admin to make users realize that they have been heard.
How to Scale Your MVP App to a Full-Fledged App?
MVP is not a simple product that requires 1-2 months of working over it and then launching it. Instead, the MVP needs a regular effort and work even after the launch of an MVP. Once the MVP is released the list of to-dos starts to grow for a considerable period of time.
1. Address Feedback
Deploying an MVP is a way to gain user attention and create a buzz in the market. So, when users interact with the product, they can give their valuable feedback, and being a platform owner you can gather such suggestions and prioritize it to define the further steps of the business. By tracking user behavior metrics the startup can decide which feature should be added, deleted, or requires improvement.
2. Consider Scalability
After releasing a product and seeking customer feedback, it’s time to break through and scale the platform. Always be ready to serve a number of users and aim for success, rather than project failure. Hence, start introducing more functionalities and scaling your platform gradually to reach more number of user and build a good market.
3. Adopt Pricing Strategy
At the MVP stage, infusing pricing strategy is a debatable point, and this may hamper the future growth of the product. Therefore, it is suggested not to go with a monetization strategy at the initial phase, but when the idea is validated and users start trusting your product, then it will be the right time to launch paid version or implement some pricing strategies as the business requires.
4. Do Rigorous Marketing
To scale your MVP app, don’t hesitate from marketing it. The guided marketing approach will make people aware of your brand and its existence in the market. When you don’t hesitate to market your full-blown app, then why take it for granted with MVP. The demand for the product will automatically motivate you to scale the product and gain attention from the target customers.
5. Maintain A Close Tab On Competitors
In this competitive market, every now and then new apps are introduced. Hence, to remain competitive in the market and gain good user traction, it is important to pursue market study and monitor new and old competitors. Study their market strategies, business tactics, and other details to learn from them and enhance your business processes.
How Much Does It Costs to Build An MVP?
To build an MVP the cost will be nominal and it is considered the ideal way to opt for MVP app development. Typically the cost of MVP app development can range from $15,000 to $50,000. Such an immense price variation in an MVP development relies mostly on the complexity of the app idea, design, and features included in the initial phase.
In addition to that, the development charges vary on the expertise and experience of the developers and the location of MVP Development Company. Therefore, the development team is the crucial factor to consider in determining the cost of an MVP app development.
For instance, if you hire a Freelancer, then the average price for MVP development will be a minimum, of $4,000, while it might also range up to $15,000 in some cases. Whereas, if you opt for a development company, then its minimum charges could be about $8,000 or as much as $30,000, depending on the project’s scope.
What Is The Key Focus of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Development For Startups in 2022?
In 2022, startups prioritize MVP development to balance offerings and expectations, minimize product failure risks, and optimize resources. The approach involves cost-effective validation, quick delivery, and iterative improvements based on user feedback, emphasizing immediate value and smart product evolution over time.
How do I build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for startup in 2022
To build an MVP in 2022, start by identifying the problem your startup aims to solve. Conduct detailed market research, prioritize essential features, and choose an MVP approach (e.g., Fake Door, Landing Page, Wizard of OZ). Develop the MVP with quality, launch it, gather feedback, and iterate. Avoid common mistakes, address feedback, consider scalability, adopt pricing strategies, and focus on rigorous marketing. The cost of MVP development ranges from $15,000 to $50,000, depending on complexity and location. Prioritize MVP development in 2022 for a successful startup journey.
Conclusion
An MVP development is one of the most suitable go-to business solutions for entrepreneurs to achieve success. It is mostly about the strategy and analysis to introduce the business idea in the market rather than developing a complicated solution at the very first step.
MVP solutions are basically to build a firm information-driven foundation to ensure typical business decisions and attract investors at the same time. So, if you are looking for expert developers to launch your MVP, Codiant can be your most reliable tech partner. We are the team of experts that can develop outstanding MVPs to empower your startup to discover more about the users, and scale up the solution into a full-fledged solution.
