A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a concept that is rapidly being adopted by start-ups and new businesses who have a product ready to launch, but need validation from various stakeholders. It is also an excellent low cost way to validate a proof of concept to investors, and proof of value to target audiences.
There are many benefits to creating such a concept, it allows rapid testing and idea validation and enhancements fairly quickly before bigger dev investments are made. As an agency, at fastfwd, we specialise in helping startups, and other businesses alike develop MVPs, as well as help in the conceptual improvements of the application. .
Below we highlight the basic concept behind building an MVP as well as focus on some benefits, as well as considering some next steps once the MNP is built.
What is an MVP?
In software development and application development, the minimum viable product (MVP) is often regarded as a polished prototype of a product that is launched to attract early adopters and users. The idea is to get these early users to validate the features, functions, pricing model and/or business model of the product.
Advantages of MVP
At fastfwd, we believe that building and developing a minimum viable product (MVP) provides a number of advantages from a product development perspective as well as a business development perspective, making it attractive to start-ups and new businesses who intend to transform their ideas into functional and successful products.
A. Cost-Effective Development Process
The main goal of developing an MVP is to focus on building and developing the core functionalities of the product first. This means that developers and engineers will be able to prioritise development resources only on essential functionality to launch the product. Essentially, an MVP is a version of a product with just enough features to be able to test the concept and demonstrate its value, while still keeping costs and development time low.
B. Actual Feedback from Users
Launching an MVP allows developers to gather actual user feedback from early adopters and users. This will help guide the next steps for developers; while identifying any issues that may arise with the product, and of course, ensuring that they are corrected before it is fully released in the market.
C. Streamlining and Scaling the Product
The key factor that shows that MVPs go above and beyond regular alpha and beta testing, is the fact that the product is deployed under actual user conditions, which can elucidate issues and problems that would not otherwise have been detected in controlled testing environments. This provides developers with an opportunity to streamline the product ahead of a full launch.
D. Faster Launch to Market
By only focusing on the core features of the product functionality developers are able to streamline the project, reducing the time needed to launch the product to market.
Validating the MVP
Validating your MVP with actual customers helps you test if there is actual market demand for your product and see if the pricing model and business model are viable.
1. Customer Interviews and Feedback
Building a community of early adopters and users can be a good opportunity for businesses to get actual feedback and interviews. Feedback from users allows developers to detect issues with products that are not detected during QA or testing.
Getting user feedback also provides great insight on how users will react to existing features of the product. This also provides developers to opportunistically look for new opportunities based on user needs.
2. Market Research
Today, there is an application or software for almost everything, so it can be difficult for start-ups to stand out. That’s why conducting market research on key competitors will help you determine the viability of your own product and avoid the pitfalls faced by the competitors.
3. Customer NPS Survey
An NPS (Net Promoter Score) survey is a great way to determine how satisfied your customers are with the product. NPS allows you to predict the growth of adoption of the product and determine how likely it is for your customers to recommend your product to their friends and other people. Having a ‘score’ provides you with a valuable scale of answers that you can use to improve your product.
4. Measuring the Churn
The churn is an important metric that provides important data on how the product is growing or provides insights if the product is losing users. The churn rate is a measurement of the rate of attrition a product has and can help businesses understand and validate the marketability of their product.
Building Your MVP
There are many tools you can use to build an MVP, it really boils down to the complexity of the application, and the flexibility sacrifices you are willing to make at the start of the build. We have built MVPs out of simple wordpress instals, clickable wireframes, all the way up to custom apps.
Just because a product is labelled an “MVP” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s completely basic – some MVPs may cost thousands of pounds to build, but still only be a fraction of the cost of the actual end product.
Building your MVP with a software development partner like fastfwd helps businesses minimise risk and allows them to leverage the expertise and experience that a team like us have.
At fastfwd, we understand the importance of developing a successful MVP. We have a team of experienced digital marketers and developers who can help startups develop a product concept, create an MVP, and can use digital marketing tactics to validate the product and get it ready for launch. We would use our expertise to help guide your MVP development from the drawing board up to the product launch.
Our dedicated MVP build service can be broken into three main tiers;
- consultation,
- prototyping,
- development.
Of course, once the build period is over, our digital teams would be in an excellent position to suggest methods of validating the build with its target audience.
We understand that there is no one-size-fits-all, but we are determined to help you develop a successful MVP, and we can adapt our technology accordingly to prove the value of your product concept to your target audience and investors. Contact us today to get started!