How to Create a Minimum Viable Product

Do you know that nine out of ten startups never make it? Jumping directly into the MVP development process without prior knowledge of the correct development method is one of the main reasons startups fail.

The abbreviation MVP is most often used for the phrase “most valuable player” and denotes the basketball player who was the best that season. In the startup world, the term MVP means “minimal viable product”.

Let’s see what MVP is in practice and how to build it. Plus, you can download your copy of the minimum viable product template for free!

What is meant by a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?

A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a product that has enough features and values ​​to present and use. It allows startups to learn from user feedback. The MVP tests the usage scenario. This includes a lot of feedback that is needed to make changes to the final product.

MVP is a basic version of an application with the basic functionalities needed to prove its essential value. At MVP, it’s crucial to develop minimal features, test them with a real audience, and continuously develop a product based on user feedback.

What can you do with the MVP approach?

• Make an early market entry and get a competitive advantage
• Enable early testing of the idea with actual users and check if you can efficiently solve their problems
• Based on user feedback and suggestions, you can work effectively towards developing a fully-fledged product
• With MVP, you can look for investors who are easier to get because you have the product you can present.

How to create an MVP for a product?

Before creating an MVP, it is essential to understand the general principles of work and product creation.

Identify the problem and possible solutions

Every product has to solve a particular problem existing on the market to be successful. Ask yourself, “What problem does the product solve?” First, you need to determine the problems and then develop the MVP application.

Research the market

Research the market well and gather as much information as possible about the leading competitors.  Analyze their website, products, values, strategies, annual reports, advertising campaigns and assess if you can offer something better.

Determine the perfect customers who will buy your product. Describe their needs, habits, gender, age, social status, income level, and define what common problems they need to solve.

Create a user journey map

The product you create must be helpful and straightforward. To find out if your product provides a good user experience, you have to test it. If you don’t feel well while using it, your user will probably feel the same way.

Create a customer journey map:

• Identify the users
• Write down what kind of actions the user has to take to meet the goal
• Think about the user’s pain points and opportunities of every task or action

Define and prioritize features

Think about the features you want to include in an MVP and write down all the components you want your app to have. Ask yourself what your customers want and what valuable features you offer them.

Use a prioritization matrix to prioritize features. This will allow you to identify where you can make the most impact with your product and help you make the final decision on what needs to be included in your MVP.

Build, test, and launch your MVP

You are almost there! After completing the previous steps, you can begin developing your MVP and test it. For a product to be successful from the start, it must satisfy investors and customer needs. Otherwise, it will be a failure.

Before spending months developing a product, it is essential to determine if the product is worth creating.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Who is this for?
• What problem does my product solve?
• Is the idea that I have a practical problem solution?

The top 3 benefits of building an MVP

Cost-efficiency

Because of focusing on keeping the product to a “minimum”, there is a reduction in the cost of development. Since the product focuses on a few core features to solve a problem, the amount of time needed to build an app is limited. By keeping the product and project simple and coding sophisticated, you can keep costs low.

Market validation

Market validation is the most considerable advantage of MVP. It helps you reduce the time and money spent developing the perfect end-product that you think people need and, instead, producing the product that people really want.

By creating a minimally sustainable product and launching it in a short time, you can get valuable feedback from your first customers. If you decide to develop it further and improve your product, you know that a market for it already exists.

Faster release

“If you are not embarrassed by your first product, you launched too late”, Reid Hoffman

The competition in today’s application market is extremely high. The sooner you launch your product, the easier it will be to get market confirmation and attract your audience.

MVP allows you to enter the market faster and get a customer base that will stay with your product through iterative progress as you scale.

Before you embark on creating an MVP, prepare well. Take a good look at the customer development process and make several versions of your business model. When your idea crystallizes, and you know what problem you are solving for which group of users and what value you want to deliver to them, you can quickly create an MVP that “does the job” for you.

Building a startup is a process that requires a lot of work and research, but it brings a lot of good fun and new knowledge!

Want to start planning your Minimum Viable Product now? Find more information about the MVP process in our ebook and download the free minimum viable product template.

Have an idea for the next great project? Let’s build your MVP!