How Much Does It Cost to Build an MVP?
In this article, we aim to explain what is MVP, how to create a minimum viable product for mobile app and how much does it cost to build an MVP.
MVP is more a way of thinking rather than something that is intended to enter the market. Minimum viable product design principles are the same for the world's leading company and for the enthusiast who believes in his idea.
However, if in the case of conventional development projects the early launch of the application is commonly evaded, a startup without it simply cannot survive. Such launch serves two main tasks:
1. Identifies the weak spots of the project with the help of the real users, and allows to adjust the strategy. Among other things, it saves the budget that is better spent on future improvements.
2. Helps to attract the first investments. The first version is something that can be shown to potential investors. Since it implements all the basic features, it helps to form an opinion about the project.
MVP’s main value is that one can spend less time on design and development, as well as to receive feedback from the users as early as possible. All this will help to understand in which direction to move, what needs an improvement and what to leave unfulfilled.
Read also: How the MVP App Prototype Benefits Your Business
What is MVP?
MVP, or minimum viable product - is a product that has the required minimum capabilities to check it out on the market. Such product does not contain any additional or secondary functions, but only the core features.
Eric Ries, co-founder of IMVU and one of the main apologists for the customer development theory, defines the MVP, as "[the] version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort". MVP conception allows to quickly create a product with a minimum set of functions, suitable for testing the target audience interaction scenarios and the hypotheses on the buyers’ needs, to abandon making costly market research and impressive investments into the development of the final solution while the idea’s viability stays unconfirmed.
Nevertheless, MVP mobile app should not be mixed up with things like demo and beta versions of the product. Demo is a demonstration version, often quite full, but limited by time or functionality. A beta is an unfinished version of the product, with errors that are detected and corrected by users during the beta test. MVP is a complete product, without any serious bugs or limitations, but with a minimum set of functions.