If you know at the very beginning of your business activity whether your company’s products will be in demand, you can save yourself from a futile business idea and losses. The release of MVP – Minimum Viable Product – can help. Let’s talk about the main advantages of this approach.
Because the concept of minimum viable product itself implies that before investing in production and creating a product with the fullest possible functionality, design and budget, it makes sense to test its “reduced” version to find out if potential customers are interested in such a project.
MVP development services allow you to test your product with a real audience. Instead of waiting to launch a finished product to the entire market. Many world-famous startups started this way. They tested a business idea with minimal investment and made sure it had a future.
This is how MVP works. It helps you to:
1. Check if the project has potential: by analysing the demand of the target audience. The fact is that such a product is already quite usable, but it has a limited number of features compared to the final product. That is, customers can test some functionality and give feedback, so in addition to testing the hypothesis, the entrepreneur can finalize the product taking into account the recommendations.
2. Save money on full-scale production: why invest in a project that may not have a future if you can test it at the initial stage without risking a lot of money? In addition, with the help of MVP it is realistic to study the target audience and its needs in more detail and use the obtained data in the development of marketing strategy.
3. Raise funds: if an MVP shows that a product has potential, it is much more likely to find investment for further development. Build a base of future customers if the response is positive.
Typically, a minimum viable product is developed for startups and before starting work on a full-fledged application or online service.
Types of MVP Development Approaches
There are several main types of MVP development approaches:
- A product with a single feature: usually the main feature for the long term and designed to solve key customer needs.
- A product that uses existing tools, but collectively offers a new product based on legacy solutions.
- Concierge: a product that will be automated in the future, but at the initial stage all tasks in it are solved in “manual” mode by employees and the author of the project. Clients are usually kept in the loop.
- A “Wizard of Oz” product that gives the appearance of a full-fledged application or automated product. Users perceive it this way, but as in the previous format, the work is done “manually”.
We hope you found this article useful. Good luck with your product development and launch!