MVP Design and Development for Start Up Businesses!
When you are the owner/executive of a start-up, you guard the time of your team carefully. You only have so many hands to get the job done and every effort, every initiative must pay off. And when it comes to investments, your logic and your plan must be solid. You can’t afford a misstep. The products and services you plan to introduce into the market must be spot-on, and the cost to design and deliver those products and services must be carefully controlled.
‘You have a lot of information about your prospective customers and the market in which you wish to compete, but you DON’T have the benefit of the day-to-day needs of your customers. Minimum Viable Products can provide this critical information and fill the gap between what is possible and what will sell.’
According to Forbes, ‘World-famous Uber, Dropbox, Figma and Slack started their way to unicorn status with MVPs.’
So, WHAT is an MVP? An MVP or Minimum Viable Product is the version of a new product created to help the business gather customer feedback and evaluate and validate features, products and ideas without creating a complete product with all the associated cost and time involved in software product initiatives.
The primary purpose of an MVP is to test the new product, upgraded product, added features or other concepts at minimal cost to the business with direct feedback from the target audience to determine future iterations, products etc., and to enhance the efficiency of development and the value of the final product.
For start-ups, this approach can provide a crucial tool to mitigate costly mistakes, optimize development efforts and ensure customer satisfaction, so that the start-up business is successful in its market of choice. A recent study defined the importance of Minimum Viable Products (MVP) as follows, ‘a preliminary basic version of the offering is comprised of just enough features to let customers experience it and assess their willingness to pay for it.’ This can be very important to start up. The fact is that no business should accept costly missteps in the market but, when it comes to start-ups, these businesses are not well-positioned to come back from critical market mistakes. They don’t have the depth of funding or resources to withstand a blow to their reputation or to waste precious time and money trying to recover from these mistakes.
Here are three primary considerations for using the MVP approach to design a software app, mobile app, or other technology products for the market:
Keep it Simple – This approach follows a clear set of rules, ensuring that the team does not dive down into the details to design features and functionality before they are even sure that the customer wants a particular feature or component. Keep it simple. Take small steps. Allow the customer to lead you, and THEN when you have the feedback you need, you can expand and dive deep to create the entire suite of features.
Plan for the Future – The business can use the feedback it receives from the MVP to plan for upgrades and expanded functionality in the future, creating a roadmap to keep the product evergreen and produce new features that they KNOW their customers will want. They can plan for the required infrastructure and technology to support these features so that they have a clear path to success.
Focus on the Big Wins – Prospective users (or current users who are looking forward to an upgraded product) will give you feedback to identify how and where they are frustrated by existing workflow and business processes and where to focus to get the most benefit and achieve the best customer satisfaction. The goal is to focus on key functionality and avoid features or expensive design elements that are attractive or clever but provide no real value to the client.
‘The primary purpose of an MVP is to test the new product, upgraded product, added features or other concepts at minimal cost to the business with direct feedback from the target audience to determine future iterations, products etc., and to enhance the efficiency of development and the value of the final product.’
As a start-up business, you probably have a lot of market research and evidence to support your approach to the market and to convince investors that you are on the right track. But the devil is in the details, and it is in the execution of your strategy that you can find your greatest challenges. You have a lot of information about your prospective customers and the market in which you wish to compete, but you DON’T have the benefit of the day-to-day needs of your customers. Minimum Viable Products can provide this critical information and fill the gap between what is possible and what will sell.
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Original Post : Minimum Viable Products Lead to Start-Up Success!
