How do you turn your MVP into a full product?

As the name suggests an MVP is supposed to solve the problem at the root. All the other enhancements follow up later. Consider Swiggy, the MVP ensured 1. order placement by the customer 2. order acceptance by the restaurant 3. order delivery by the delivery partner Problems such as making food selection intuitive for the customer, giving better control of order fulfilment to the restaurant and a 360-degree view of the incentive for the delivery partner followed. The golden rule for turning an MVP into a furnished product is rigorous feedback from all stakeholders, identifying problems of user cohorts and solving them one at a time. The first question to ask before building any feature is - What problem does it solve for my user?

Pretty simple: get feed back and iterate. The MVP should be good enough to "kind of" solve the consumer's problem. But if you ruthlessly press the consumer for every bit of feedback (as well as observe the consumer's behavior, given consumers don't always know what they want), you'll get a dataset/roadmap to iterate on. Then, rinse and repeat until you're getting super minimal objections and the objections are such that "fixing" one aspect degrades another key aspect or degrades the mission/purpose of the product. NOW you have a product.

The journey of validating product assumptions starts with understanding what it's like to be your target audience. This involves understanding their needs, pain points, and behaviours. Conduct surveys, interviews, and focus groups to gather qualitative insights.

In my experience I have always had very little time to run full A/B testing so I used to run instant surveys and feedback sessions, interviews and blind feature tests. This has resulted in clearing a lot of ambiguity about the features and main purpose of the product. However in general, A/B testing is one of the best ways to validate your assumptions and above that resides the VOC that should be the ultimate deciding factor for your product’s purpose and features. Sometimes your gut feeling may work but always rely on data backed hypothesis. Follow the trends and look at the pain points you were actually trying to resolve in the discovery phase.

Collect feedback from early users. Analyze user behavior and satisfaction. Test hypotheses on value proposition, market fit, revenue model. Utilize surveys, interviews, analytics, experiments. Identify what works and needs improvement.

Sharing best methods to prioritize your features: Weighted Scoring. RICE Method. Value Vs Effort. Kano Model. Story Mapping. MoSCoW Method. Priority Poker. Opportunity Framework.

It is quite important for a startup to think of product features in terms of their ROI. This helps prioritize features that have the most impact onto customer satisfaction - saving time by eliminating KPIs that do not translate into a successful MVP cycle.

Prioritize features based on feedback. Determine essential, desirable, unnecessary features. Consider effort, cost, impact of each. Use Kano model, MoSCoW method, RICE score. Focus on features delivering most value.

In my experience focusing on feature-driven is the wrong path because when your team develops the roadmap value isn't, feasibility isn't, and the business viability isn't there. Instead, encourage your team to the real business problem that needs to be solved, it will be some user pain point, and let the team resolve each quarter with the OKRs technique.

Prioritization comes from your key metrics. You have to observe what's working well, what can help the users and also help the business with ROI. You also have to keep the user experience in mind when you work on features. Some frameworks also helps prioritize, the key methods are MoSCoW and RICE scoring. Focus more towards ROI, UX and key metrics to recognize what features to add next.

PRETOTYPE AND IMPROVE LIKE TESLA Tesla used a Lotus Elise to interest potential buyers for their first car. In 2003, the founders of Tesla had an ambitious idea (an all-electric 2-door sports car). In order to convince potential buyers to order its car, Tesla created a pretotype of what the car would look like. Lotus supplied Tesla with a ‘glider’ Elise - which was filled with models of key components. This was not a prototype, because the vehicle didn’t function. Tesla was able to show buyers a close proxy for the final design. Tesla asked “Will you put down a $5,000 deposit to have it built to order?” From this test Tesla secured several hundred deposits, a non-trivial result to reassure their Investors.

The scientific process of hypothesis, test, and prototype is also valid in this field. Tests should be quite unbiased w.r.t. target sample, which means you are using to submit them. A good habit is asking, in fake formats, for some personal target information, to test if they are really interested in the product.

Quick way to do this: use balsamiq, its easy for creators that do not know anything about design to build an idea of what they want to make. Then take that to a UX/UI Front End Developer Guru and then work with a full stack developer to build it from there. Ideally make sure to start adding in beta users asap when you are able to validate everything you are doing and test on the go all the new features coming out. Keep on focusing on beta customers that make up you product market fit and make sure your aligned and when you are start adding in small marketing budget to test.

The five stages of the iterative design cycle: Identify a problem through user research. Before we dive into creating potential solutions, we need to know what problem we're solving. Ideate solutions. Prototype the best option(s) Analyze how good the prototype is Iterate.

Iterating a design is "must-do" step in turning an MVP into a full product. It's not just about making the product visually appealing, but also about ensuring it's intuitive and consistent for the end-user. Tools like wireframes and prototypes are invaluable in this process, as they allow for testing and refining before the final product is launched. Furthermore, optimizing performance, security, and reliability are key factors in building trust with users and ensuring scalability. It's a continuous process of learning, improving, and adapting to user needs and market trends. Remember: Iteration does not stop at product launch, but it continues after launch with product enhancements and additions of new options and functionality.

10 FAMOUS INNOVATIONS USING LEAN STARTUP MVP’s 1. Dropbox: used lean to develop its cloud storage product. 2. Airbnb: used lean to test market demand. 3. Instagram: followed the lean startup principles of building a MVP. 4. Zappos: rhe online shoe retailer, employed lean to test market demand. 5. Slack: a collaborative workplace platform, was built using a lean approach. 6. Groupon: the popular deal-of-the-day website used lean to validate its business model. 7. Squarespace: a website building platform, utilized lean to refine its product. 8. Buffer: a social media management tool, developed its product using lean. 9. GitHub: a web-based platform for collaboration employed lean. 10. Lyft: the popular ride-hailing app, used lean.

When launching a full-fledged product version, build them on a solid foundation of user feedback and data insights. During the MVP stage, consider it as going from "zero to one". Here, you put in a lot of effort based on the founder's intuition of what the market wants. Beyond the MVP, when you start launching new features, it's a "one to N" stage. Here, your decisions should be based on data. Use a data-driven approach when you start scaling up to ensure that any slip-ups are only minor shortcomings rather than a major fall.

A product launch is a coordinated effort to bring a new solution to the market. The goal? To build excitement for and awareness of your product. Product launches involve several teams, including the sales team, the customer support team, product teams, product marketing, event management, and even managers.

Even the best product in the world will fail if the the Launch plan and process are flawed. Defining clearly the segment, personas, positioning, pricing, channels, demand generation, support, objections, competition, sales targets, are some key steps to complete in order to guarantee complete success of the Launch of the Product.

The launch phase of a startup is absolutely critical and requires a well-planned strategy. Even the best product may fail if the launch is not well planned and executed. It's not just about creating awareness but also about creating a strong value proposition that resonates with your target audience. Tools like landing pages, email campaigns, and social media are indeed useful, but they need to be used strategically. For instance, social media can be used for building a community around your product, while email campaigns can be used for personalized communication. Moreover, it's important to have a robust feedback mechanism in place to continually improve your product based on customer feedback.

Tips for Improving a Product With a New Feature Find Out What is Bothering Your Current Customers. Find Where Your Current Product Falls Short. Check Ideas Before Putting Them Into Action. Introduce New Features and Help People Find Them. Keep a Record of All the Changes. Conduct Surveys to Get Feedback From Customers.

You always strive for the Blue Ocean knowing pretty well that its going to end in Red Ocean. However, learning and improving fast helps enjoy the Blue Ocean longer till you have a completely developed product and its a Star

The moment your MVP hits product market fit, it's a no-brainer – shift gears to a full product. This step is vital, often the biggest game-changer for start-ups and new products. From my experience, once you find PMF, your backlog will overflow with demand for three types of features: 1.Table Stakes: Those vital features your MVP missed - like a industry/function specific best practise or a regulatory requirement 2.Right to Play: In the B2B world, this means integrations and SSOs – your ticket to play with the big leagues. 3.Complements: Features that tackle related problems, adding more value to your core solution. Prioritizing between these requests smartly is key to turning your MVP success into a sustainable, full-fledged product!

I think this is the most important part that sets the MVP-only features from actual usable mature products that get the market fit right! It is rare for an MVP to hit the bullseye right off, it usually has to have several iterations and improved upon by relying on the voice of our customers. Our research and supporting data can get us so far - the real magic happens when we meet our customers and make those tactical adjustments to our product - and successfully pushing the right buttons for them. A lot of features get left at the MVP state forever due to a lack of understanding of this part...

Transitioning from MVP to a fully functional product is crucial <> Engaging with your initial customers is key. <> Strike individual conversations with the first 100 customers <> Seek their feedback, and gain insights into their perspectives on your product. <> Ideate based on their input, put the ideas for review, and analyze their feasibility. Once you're confident about the new features to be added, put them into production. This ensures you're not jumping the gun and that you're incorporating important features suggested by your existing customers.

Knowing when your MVP turns into a product isn’t clear-cut. It’s ultimately about asking the right questions. Is it something people are willing to pay for because it adds value to them? Is it reliable and not just a fleeting idea? It doesn’t have to be perfect but is it good enough to make your brand proud? Personally these are some of the factors that would make me confident is saying we’ve released a product.

Most 'mvp' are actually 'working' prototypes. So the real starting point is knowing when you are building the product and when you aren't. If you build a prototype like the product it is waste and you'll be too slow. If you built the product like a prototype, it's technical debt and you will have a shoddy system that will be a pain to extend and maintain. The difference is intent. Prototypes are for testing and learning what to build. MVP is to test the market. This is why I hate the term MVP. It really should me MMP - minimum marketable product.

Let's not forget that an MVP (or an MLP - Minimal Loveable Product - as I like to use) IS YOUR PRODUCT. It's not some throw-away half-baked prototype-like thing, and it shouldn't be. It should be a product that is as solid as it can be, just with a tested early set of features you know will be valued by your niche. If you don't, be warned that spaghetti-code beginnings are almost never dropped altogether, because the effort to start anew is seen as a disastrous loss of valuable time - with all the tech debt remaining in the then 'legacy' code... So it better be a great product from the start!

Scaling your MVP necessitates strategic strategy, product refinement, operational efficiency, and effective monetization. By implementing these tactics, you can reach out to new customers, increase your revenue potential, and expand your product beyond its initial launch

When things don’t work out….. Consider your options: Quit, Stick, or Pivot. Quitting means moving on, which can be the best choice for a bad idea. Sticking requires determination, especially in sales and marketing, but comes with the cost of not exploring other opportunities. Pivoting means exploring new possibilities, which is often viable in the startup world.