Creating an MVP

Minimum Viable Product is a way to test a business idea, and at the same time the basis for creating a full — fledged digital product. How to avoid mistakes when creating an MVP, what you need to pay attention to, which elements are not critical at this stage — we will analyze all this in this material.

How Creating an MVP Helps a Business

The main task of the MVP is to test the business idea and run cycles of sequential hypothesis testing. This will allow you to test the viability of the idea, refine it in accordance with the real needs of the market and identify demand.

Consumers are starting to use the minimal version of your product, which helps to “cover” their needs — and this is what shows that MVP is useful to the market and has a chance to become a full-fledged business.

Feedback from users helps to understand the real need of the target audience and release a sought-after product. Otherwise, the founder risks spending money and time on something that no one needs, often creating more and more new add-ons to solve a huge number of non-existent problems.

As a result, fixing such a product to a state where it solves at least one specific problem may cost more than developing a similar project from scratch.

What is the advantage of the MVP approach to development? With it, you can:

• Test the idea for a little time and money;
• Test the idea on beta testers and collect feedback;
• Attract investments at the earliest stage (investors are interested in seeing a working product, not “wet fantasies”);
• Show management the value of an idea;
• To carry out the transformation process in a large corporation in stages and with minimal risks.

The MVP approach is also applicable in corporations. If innovation is planned, you can try to optimize not the entire production process, but start with a small part of it. This will allow you to collect feedback from users at each stage, see weaknesses and improve them.

In order for MVP to come out really viable, it is necessary to clearly determine before the start of design and development what specific tasks the product solves and what is its advantage over existing methods.

How to determine the minimum set of features for the first version of the product

There is a certain technique, following which you can determine the minimum functionality of the product by creating a technical task for developers on its basis:

• Clearly state the problem that your product solves. Do not try to solve many problems at the same time. Concentrate on one, maximum — two tasks.
• Describe your target audience. Make the data as detailed as possible, the more of them, the better. It is advisable to rely on specific people who can become your first beta testers.
• Confirm the existence of the problem. Chat with potential users. Perhaps the problem you want to solve exists only in your mind. Alternatively, use the Customer Development methodology for this.
• Make sure that your product really solves the described problem.
• Look for analogs. With a very high probability they already exist. Be sure to check the project collections on foreign websites (for example, betalist.com , producthunt.com ).
• Formulate hypotheses. Try to do it in such a way that they can be measured.
• Determine the minimum set of functions. At this stage, it is very important to lay down only the functionality that will allow you to test the formulated hypotheses.
• Identify the criteria for success. This will allow you to move towards a tangible goal and understand that you have achieved it and the product can be scaled or increased functionality.

MVP is a minimally viable product — this term is firmly rooted in our head as one of the pillars of the IT industry and modern entrepreneurship. Having come into use in the early 2000, now it is found in the absolute majority of articles about product creation, vacancies in the field of IT management and, I want to believe, is actively used as an approach to building a business. So, this beast must have a minimum sufficient set of functions to test the hypotheses on which it is planned to build and develop anything. Interesting facts are hidden in this “whatever”, because if you look around, MVP, as an approach to business, can be found in completely different, sometimes unrelated to IT, spheres.

Cinema

In the case of cinema, the director cannot afford to move iteratively and gradually complicate the scenes, he has only one shot. Therefore, a storyboard and an animatic come to his aid. That is, all the scenes are drawn in the form of a comic book, transmitting all the details and angles, and then, if necessary, all this is animated. The main goal of such a process is to synchronize the vision of the team and optimally plan production. What is not a dynamic prototype?

Tailoring

Some products may be so personalized that they must be clearly tailored to the needs of the user, and correcting errors “live” will be too expensive. This, for example, happens when sewing clothes. First, a mock-up of a product made of cheap fabric is created, then it is adjusted to an ideal condition and only after that the tailoring itself begins. Measure seven times, cut one off, as they say.

WhatsApp

In 2009, Jan Koum and Brian Acton decided to create a mobile phone book that would show the status of a contact: available, busy, in a meeting, and so on. Contacts of users of this book received corresponding pop-up notifications. However, they soon started using statuses to communicate. Then the creators released a new version of WhatsApp with the function of sending messages.

Architecture

Another purpose for which prototypes are created is to verify the integrity of the product. A striking example here is the architectural layout. In this case, the product is too large for perception and it is possible to evaluate its composition, the consistency of various parts before the start of real work only with the help of a simplified version. As in online products, sometimes you have to log in twice to enter your personal account, so you would have to climb the street stairs into buildings if architects did not prototype their ideas before implementation.

Conclusion

Now let’s summarize the main thoughts. For us, MVP is primarily a way to create the perfect product. The main driving forces on this path are the following desires:

• test the product hypothesis;
• minimize the man hours spent on development;
• minimize the funds spent;
• deliver the product to the first followers as quickly as possible;
• get as much information about users and the market as possible.

To go this way as efficiently as possible, you need to go from the general to the private:

1. define the global vision of your product and its core value;
2. identify your target audience and identify potential first followers and evangelists from it;
3. identify the most acute sub-problem that concerns your first users, which you can solve with minimal effort, and form the set of functions necessary to solve this sub-problem;
4. create the first version of your product by choosing the most suitable type of MVP for your offer;
5. set up a feedback loop with your users.

As a result, you will enter the market with a product that has:

enough value — that is, people are willing to pay for it;

there are obvious buns in the future — people will come back to you;

feedback is set up — you understand how to develop it.

If your first version conveys only the key value of the product — you get the right to make a mistake that will not ruin you. The goal of creating an MVP is not to hit the bullseye right away, but to maximize learning and not go down the wrong path. MVP always comes to one of two ends: the state of product/market fit or the realization that your product is useless.