The minimum viable product (MVP) is a particular version of a product that presents sufficient features for early customer satisfaction. It is designed for the purpose of collecting exclusive customer feedback that is used in proper product development in the future based on customer requirements, which costs less in comparison to developing a new product with unwanted features.
The term minimum viable product was first introduced by Frank Robinson in 2001 and made popular by Eric Ries and Steve Blank. It refers to a process and product that is used to conduct an analysis of the market beforehand, and the MVP is designed to have enough features to effectively launch the product. The products are presented to a certain category of customers who are more likely to provide honest feedback and are able to understand the vision of a product from an early prototype.
Types of MVP
Understanding the different types of MVP is important since some will work better based on the product, business, industry, and consumers. The main types of MVP include:
Concierge MVP
This type of MVP is often the top choice for service-based businesses. In many cases, an effective solution is to find people who are willing to test the service, which provides data that can be analyzed. Once the idea has been validated, you are then able to build an application that collects people’s responses, analyses data, and matches customers with the right product or services for them. It is known as a concierge MVP as you first provide services manually to validate your business idea. It is an ideal way to get to know your customers and allows you to easily pivot if the feedback shows that your customers want a different product.
Wizard of Oz MVP
While the concierge MVP method is focused on delivering an experience powered by real data from real people, this doesn’t hide the fact that the product is unfinished. In contrast, a Wizard of Oz MVP is used to develop the impression that the product is actually completed when in reality, it is still in development. It may also be referred to as a Flintstoning MVP or Manual-First MVP. It is an ideal method of testing any startup that offers a service. While the product might seem fully featured and ready from the outside, there’s actually a lot of work going on behind the scenes. This type of MVP allows you to work directly with clients, analyzing their preferences and behaviors to ultimately make the necessary changes and improvements to the product or service.
Piecemeal MVP
A piecemeal MVP introduces the product to the target audience yet doesn’t require investing heavily, if at all, in the product. The main idea behind this is to use solutions and tools that are already available to deliver the product to the market. A piecemeal MVP is made up of elements from various sources that combine to create your product’s foundation.
MVP Purposes
There are various purposes of the minimum viable product (MVP). The masters in lean manufacturing from Kettering University covers MVP prototyping, including purposes and benefits such as:
- Aids in accelerating learning: When the initial product does not succeed, the MVP can help to determine the product’s pitfalls, accelerating the learning process for developing a product that is viable and robust.
- The MVP can be useful in reducing wasted hours deployed in manufacturing the product, providing a signal ahead of time for the required improvements, which can in turn improve production efficiency.
- The MVP can establish the ability of the product manufacturer to create the product and justify which it is required. The ability of the manufacturer is improved with the help of the MVP.
- The MVP can help to envisage the quick building of a brand or product, since any flaws in the product will be dealt with at an earlier stage before the product is completed and has reached a wider audience. As a result of this, the vision of the product in the market is improved, boosting company reputation and product popularity.
- Using information gathered through the MVP, minimal resources will be required for improving the large production of goods, and supply is sent as early as possible to customers.
MVP Characteristics
- It provides a feedback loop that is used for guiding the future development of any product.
- It provides satisfactory value for customers who are willing to purchase it or use it initially when developed.
- It helps to maintain early product adopters by demonstrating future benefits and provides a way to gain and assess the wishes and preferences of the customers in terms of using the product.
MVP Elements
- Functionality: Any features demonstrated in the MVP should be clear to customers. It should present a set of functions or features to the customer that serve the purpose of delivering clear value.
- Reliability: The quality standard of the product should be achieved with thorough testing, which helps to generate a higher customer reliability for future products.
- Design: The MVP should have a unique design and high-quality standards.
- Usability: An MVP should not be complex to use, and it should be intuitive.
MVP Examples
Some examples of companies that successfully used an MVP include:
Groupon: A website called The Point, started by Andrew Mason, provided a platform where people can come together to accomplish specific tasks that they were unable to do on their own. However, this site did not gain any momentum, which led Mason to try doing it differently with the same domain. This led to a customized blog called the Daily Groupon.
Airbnb: The founders of Airbnb started the business using their own apartments. This allowed them to get a close-up interaction with their first customers, providing valuable insights regarding their next steps.
Foursquare: Location-based social network Foursquare started life as a one-feature MVP offering gamification rewards and check-ins. Only when the idea had been validated with a growing, eager user base did the development team begin to add other features such as city guides, recommendations, and more.
Why Build an MVP?
There are several reasons for companies to build an MVP as a key part of the product manufacturing process. An MVP works as a midpoint between the earlier developmental stages of the product and the final completed stage. It is used to define the direction that the product will be taken before reaching its final form and is one of the most crucial stages in the research and development cycle of the product. The development of the MVP provides forecasted goals and expectations and comes into play once real data is put into the process. It is a full-scale test in the real market situation for the product at its basic level, and helps to build interactions with the target audience, gets the attention of potential customers, and allows the business to determine customer needs in order to better meet them.
What’s the Difference Between an MVP and Prototype?
The differences between prototype and MVP are quite vague and will depend on the context in which it is used. An MVP refers to a functional prototype that fulfills the specific purpose of helping the market understand the product and gauge their reaction to the product. The MVP is used to compare the response of these consumers when compared with similar competitive products. On the other hand, a prototype typically refers to a non-interactive type of MVP that is usually designed for the benefit of the business only, helping them to understand what, how, where, and why during the development stage. A prototype makes up the outline of the product and is generally not presented to a large customer segment.
What are the Benefits of Creating an MVP?
Creating an MVP has various benefits for any business that is manufacturing a product. These include:
- Save Money: The MVP can help the company minimize the budget and avoid overspending during the development stage of any product or software.
- Save Time: The concept of an MVP helps the company gain early access to customer feedback. As a result, the organization begins to develop a refined version of the product at an earlier stage.
- Better Target Audience Understanding: The MVP can help the company get a clearer understanding of the wants, needs, and opinions of their target audience, which can then be used during the product development stage to improve customer satisfaction.
- Check Product Viability: Deploying an MVP allows companies to perform a thorough check of the product viability, since it allows them to examine the performance of the product in real market conditions.
Are There Any Disadvantages?
While building and deploying an MVP is undoubtedly beneficial for companies, it’s worth being aware of some of the main disadvantages that the company might face throughout this process. These include:
- A lot of upfront work is usually required in order to get reliable and usable feedback from consumers. Development efforts are required for various product releases, which can be tedious and time-consuming.
- Based on the feedback of customers, it may be necessary for the manufacturer to perform multiple revisions. This may lead to more time and effort needed in order to finish the product.
- The MVP features are usually fundamental, and significant dedication is needed for frequent, small product releases.
- The functionality of the product will typically need to be revised several times in order to achieve the customized need based on customer feedback.
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How to Define a Minimum Viable Product
How is an MVP developed, and how does a team know when they have an MVP that is ready to launch?
Align the MVP with Business Objectives
Before determining which features to build, the first step in developing an MVP is to ensure that the product aligns with the strategic goals of the team or company overall. It is important to be clear on what those goals are and to ask questions that may affect whether it’s the right time to begin developing a new MVP. It’s also important to be clear on the purpose that the MVP is going to serve.
Identify Specific Problems or Improvements
Once you have determined that the MVP plans are in alignment with the objectives and goals of your business, it’s important to begin thinking about the specific solutions that you want your product to provide to the user. However, it’s also important to bear in mind that these solutions do not represent the overall vision of the product, but rather subsets of it. You can only develop a small amount of functionality with your MVP, and it’s important to be strategic when deciding which limited functionality you are going to include.
Create a Development Action Plan
Once you have weighed up and determined the strategic elements and decided on the right amount of limited functionality for your MVP, the next step involves translating this into a development action plan. It’s important to make sure that the product is viable which means that it needs to allow the customers to complete an entire project or task and needs to provide a high-quality experience. It should be a working product that your company is able to sell, rather than a product with features or tools that are only half-built.
Any successful startup or product development process today requires a minimal viable product. Companies build MVPs in order to launch a new product with minimal investment, validate their startup ideas, build their audience, and gain valuable feedback that allows them to avoid wasting money or providing a service or product that is not wanted, ultimately allowing them to protect against losses. In the past, many now-successful companies such as Uber, Dropbox, and Airbnb started with an MVP. These companies demonstrate how important an MVP is as a method that allows you to put customer satisfaction first and make sure that they like your product; the technical and finer details only matter when your product is in large demand.
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