*In business, everybody wants their product to bring a profit for their company. However, your future product will not bring you a profit until people need it. But how to know that your future product will bring you profit before the production starts? You need an MVP approach to know this.
In this article, we will help you to learn how MVP works and why you need it.
What is MVP and Why it is Important?
- What Does MVP mean?– It means Minimum Viable Product. The term MVP was introduced by Frank Robinson. Erich Ries, the main populariser of MVP, interpreted the MVP as:
- The Minimum Viable Product is a version of a new product that the team uses to collect the maximum amount of valid learning about customers with minimal effort.
MVP In Terms Of Marketing:
What is MVP in Terms of Marketing? In practice, the MVP concept seems simple: the company launches a product ready for use in the market and tries to gather more and more opinions from its users. The trick is that the Minimum Viable Product performs the main function but does not have all the additional features originally provided by the team.
Why does the MVP concept work? Because it makes no sense to spend the budget for secondary product improvements if the key function does not work as expected or does not meet the needs of users. To realize how much money, you can save by implementing the MVP concept, it is enough to keep in mind that more than 45% of all IT product functions are never detected by most of your users.
How To Build MVP In A Right Way?
It takes 5 steps to make an MVP. Keep in mind that the last step does not mean the end of MVP development. Hypothesis testing cycles can be repeated indefinitely until you have the right product that satisfies both you and your customers.
This is what the MVP production process looks like:
Step 1. Customer And Market Study
Find out if your original idea (if you have one) meets the needs of the people to whom you plan to sell your product. Field research, market analysis and focus group surveys will be useful here. Also, make sure there are no other products on the market that already attend the same audience. Define the uniqueness of your product if you choose a competitive environment.
Step 2. Define Your Idea
Make sure that your MVP must perform an important function in your client’s life. What is this function about? Make decisions about the key features of your product at this stage. Start with customer value and competitive advantages.
Step 3. Design the prototype and user flow
Choose a form that defines your idea. Don’t forget: the design must be determined by the user’s convenience. Consider the best and cheapest way (low financial consumption for small functions) to present the main function to the user. Think about payment methods and sources of response. Work with a prototype, choose the best one and then implement it! Keep in mind that the MVP emphasis should always be on the main function.
Step 4. Create MVP
This is the longest process among all of them. Use selected prototypes and keep deadlines.
Step 5. Collect comments and let your team learn
When you bring the MVP to the market, try to promote it. Remember that immediate benefit is not your goal. You should find out how users respond to your product, if they are willing to pay you or not, and if the characteristics of the product are obvious to them. To answer these questions, integrate analysis into the product, follow the number of responses and collect comments. When you have a significant amount of data, gather a team and decide on the further development of the project. Then start working on a new MVP.
Examples Of Successful Minimum Value Product (MVP)
It is unlikely that you will find at least one product today that was launched in all its glory and instantly became a superstar in the market. However, there are a few examples of the first MVP success:
How did Spotify get the main music label contracts in just a few months? The answer is MVP! In 2007, the MVP of the world-renowned music streaming service was launched for a closed group of Windows users. Having previously obtained data from a large number of customers, the founders of Spotify could easily demonstrate to everyone that the service would generate large revenues. Expectations were met. Today, the service receives membership fees from more than 87 million people.
- Uber
Uber’s philosophy has not changed since the launch of its MVP in 2009. The first version of the service allowed users to find the nearest taxi without calling the taxi service and paying for the trip without taking the wallet out of their pocket. Although Uber always has the form of an application, its basic set of functions did not include direct calls to the driver, customer geolocation exchange and car category selection. The idea presented by Uber MVP turned out to be revolutionary. Uber wins. The service is now available in 600 cities around the world.
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