How can you create and test your MVP with the best tools and platforms?

Understand the acronym and definitions, especially Minimal/minimum and Viable. No bells and whistles! No “nice to haves”. Those go on a roadmap. This is bare bones. Minimal. But it also has to be VIABLE. It needs to do what users want need and expect it to to. It’s needs to solve a real problem. Nail this and get market as easy and quickly as possible (can use open source, piecework tech etc) to validate and test feasibility.

To define your MVP you should start with JTBDs and have a clear understanding of your beachhead consumer. Once you define the problems you are trying to solve, you should quickly validate these with your WHO to then prioritize needs and start thinking about solutions.

MVP must make your product speak for itself with a simpler language. Focus on making that product to be taken to real customers who will give you feedback. Less is more in this MVP. Lean Canvas is an amazing tool to see the whole picture quickly.

An MVP needs to be close to be the final product in look and feel. It can be any medium. Get creative. You can even use cardboards, charts and use post-its to make it interactive for your user. This trick works very well if you are building B2C products and for the digital world.

In my experience of building start ups – “Proof of the pudding lies in the eating” so the best way to test your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is to Pilot it with Potential Customers for the product to see if you have got the proposition right or needs to be tweaked a little or it needs some more value adds to make it “A Must Have” !! And once the Pilot is successful, you could scale this up.

There’s a big difference between mock-ups, clickable wireframes etc and a truly functional MVP. This MVP should be built and launched usually before seeking funding and is truly to test viability, interest, and user behavior.

MVP in essence, indicates a testing base of your product. This can be done through video demos detailing how your product suits user needs and what benefits the users will get from your product. The medium of delivery can vary depending on the organization and the target audience. For instance, Resend company that launched a revolutionary email messaging, had tech enthusiasts and developers sign up way before delivery by just demonstrating using mockups and simple frames what the product would do. They finally were funded by Y combinator which is a big deal. Just focus on your target audience and how best to deliver to them, the rest won't matter as much.

I disagree with the perspective that the MVP is a test product or one that should be built before funding. The "P" stands for PRODUCT. A product is something that should be market ready, and the MVP can only be built after thorough testing of the concept. The whole point of an Alpha or testing phase is to arrive at what your MVP will be. Your test prototypes should help you secure funding and build confidence in your team that your MVP is market ready.

You should start with defining where you are in your "Startup journey" to identify the type of MVP that best suits your goals. The concept of MVP is "the version of a new product/solution that allows you to capture enough insights to validate your LOFAs" - The equivalent of understanding if your beachhead customer will purchase it or not. But there is a problem ... there are many versions of MVPs. It's crucial to pick the best MVP that fits your goal. For example, you can select "No product-MVPs" where you can leverage simple landing pages (Smoke test) to test desirability, "Mock-product-MVPs" where you test pieces of your product singularly, and "Minimal Product" that comes with the actual product development. So be specific. It will help!

If you can't create a complete and compelling wireframe in something like Figma; you will likely struggle with spending time writing actual code. So don't skip steps and that way you spend the least amount of time debating decisions with the most expensive resources; software engineers.

Drawing from firsthand experience, I successfully developed and brought a game to market, a journey initiated by the meticulous creation of 25 prototypes. I then distributed these prototypes across various cities for real-world testing, entrusting the users to navigate the gameplay on their own. During this testing phase, me and my co-creator were silent observers, consciously stepping back to allow the game to interact with its audience organically. This step was as crucial as it was terrifying; a necessary baptism by fire that all creations must endure to forge their true identity. Gathering feedback was an exercise in humility and discernment, filtering through the responses to identify the most constructive insights.

This is IMPERATIVE. Not only friends or friendlies. Not only a specific subset. This needs to reflect real potential customers and receptivity of your solution and approach.

I would say the ideal is having a customer actually pay for your value with their own money. This is real proof of value; anything less is a guess that is likely to be off target.

Keep in mind that an MVP is not a fully functional product. Thus, one of the best metrics about it is how often testers break it, provide feedback, and send feature requests. If everyone is happy with your MVP, you most likely either didn't find a suitable test group or developed something that isn't needed in the market.

Pick your first users. Then pick the other users, in that order. Remember your target audience. You know you are successful when your product is used in ways not intended or by users not anticipated. That's your second user audience but if you start there you will only get distracted.

The most fundamental yet often overlooked piece of testing an MVP is collecting usage analytics with a tool like Pendo, Amplitude, or Mixpanel. Early adopters are likely to be friends, family, and friends of friends - aka they aren’t likely to tell you to your face if something isn’t hitting the mark. Time and time again I see founders make me mistake of trusting early adopter words but NOT aligning it with product data. It’s the difference between really finding product-market-fit vs thinking you have.

To bring your team onboard with pivots to your positioning and roadmap, consider sharing clips from your user testing. User quotes can have more impact than a slide full of charts and graphs.

Use some users' recording tools to see what users do in your app or website. Reach out to your users and ask them for feedback.

Even with a low number of test users, you can tell if people come back on their own or not. If they are not coming back without your reminder; think about that really hard and see if you can solve that puzzle early on before spending a lot of time and resources building things out further.

Post-MVP testing, the real work begins: the synthesis of data into actionable insights. At this stage, dissonance between your initial assumptions and the actual feedback isn't a setback but a roadmap for improvement. In HackerPulse's journey, we found value in juxtaposing quantitative data against qualitative feedback to guide our iterations. Tools like Airtable and Miro can be instrumental, but they merely facilitate the intellectual heavy lifting that comes with identifying patterns, resolving inconsistencies, and setting priorities. This is the phase where you differentiate 'nice-to-haves' from 'must-haves,' and possibly uncover hidden gems that redefine your product's value proposition.

At the end of the day, it is all about users who pay you for solving their problems. But remember that money is not the only currency you can track. Users' time that they are spending in your app is often worth even more than the subscription fee.

I would say that if you can't get 100 users to regularly come back without incentive; then something is wrong. So focus on how quickly you can get to that number, then add a zero and time getting to 1000 recurring monthly users and repeat this cycle to a million users. A wealth of data tracking this closely when things are still relatively small.

Achieving product-market fit is the Holy Grail of startup endeavors, and your MVP is your most valuable tool in this quest. The metrics you choose—be it retention rate, NPS, or positive unit economics—serve as your compass, guiding you toward or away from market resonance. For instance, at HackerPulse, a significant marker of our product-market fit was the accuracy and efficiency with which our platform matched talent to corporate needs, validated through key metrics like customer satisfaction and repeat usage rates. Tools like Mixpanel or ProfitWell provide the analytical horsepower, but it's your nuanced understanding of those metrics that brings you closer to a market fit.

What are you selling? To whom are you selling? Here is where you find your product-market fit. What could be technology, product, community, eyeballs, etc. Who could be SMB, Enterprise, VCs, etc.

These days there are so many AI tools for mockups, wire frames, user stories, and even coding — and most are free! It no longer takes months and five- or six-figure budgets to create workable prototypes or even full MVPs. The barrier to entry has been lowered substantially.

The MVP journey is less linear than it appears; it's a cycle where learning feeds back into development. At HackerPulse, we quickly adapted when we saw unexpected features gain traction. Never underestimate the human element; sometimes unscripted user interactions can be the most insightful. Lastly, a growing community doesn’t just validate your product, it also fuels your team’s momentum and morale. Remember, an MVP is not a one-off event but a continuous process of learning and refining.