Top successful projects that started as MVPs
Starting a new business can be more risky than we think. Not all successful projects were 100% sure that their product or service would become popular among users. That is why many services, which are now used by millions, started their journey with MVP.
With the help of MVP, you can test your idea, determine customer requests, research the market and get information that will allow you to create a high-quality and unique product, avoiding all risks and unnecessary costs.
Data science products are inherently risky. Creating a Data Science MVP can reduce this risk by focusing the early development lifecycle on discovery and learning.
Starting a data science project has many unknowns – about data, algorithms, systems and business. You can naively guess about these unknowns and set about building a full-fledged data processing product. With over 10 years of experience in Data Science, Amazinum can help you create a mini version of your product or service.
That is why you should be reassured if you are unsure about your idea. It is better to start with small steps than not to start at all. Otherwise, we would not have such services as Instagram, Amazon, etc.
You can learn more in our landing page about MVP?.
Why You Need an MVP
Idea Testing and Market Entry
Without spending a lot of resources and time to develop a complete product, test your idea in the market now. Consider feedback and user needs and avoid unnecessary costs. All this will help you attract users and make your product unique and high-quality.
Optimize Costs
MVP gives you the basic and core functions of your product, avoiding unnecessary layering of technologies. Thanks to this, you will only spend a little money, but at the same time, you will get a working version of your program, service, or service. This will create a nice “financial cushion” for you in case of risks.
Attract Investment
Prototypes already on the market gaining user attention are more attractive to investors than just ideas. You can develop and scale your business without spending a lot of effort and money.
Customer-oriented Product
At each stage of development, you can involve a user. This will give you a better understand of his behavior, need, and pain points.
MVP (Minimum Viable Product) Types
Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) come in a variety of forms, each with a distinct function and stage of product development:
High-fidelity MVP: Despite having minimal features, a high-fidelity MVP has an extremely engaging user experience.
Low-fidelity MVP: the UI is really basic.
MVP with a single feature: as the name implies, it has just one feature.
Concierge MVP: A concierge MVP employs a human (or human team) to carry out activities rather than an automated process as in a full-fledged software solution.
Piecemeal MVP: An unfinished MVP uses third-party apps and services to finish tasks that the app will eventually perform independently.
Digital MVP: It enables quick iterations and real-user testing of important hypotheses.
Hybrid MVP: blends elements of multiple MVP types to create a special plan best suited for the target market and the specific needs and goals of the product.
领英推荐
TOP Companies That Started as MVP
Airbnb was founded in August 2008 by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk. Today, the company is one of the most famous hospitality and travel services. It is used worldwide in 34,000 cities and 192 countries.
MVP Airbnb
However, few people know that such a huge business started with an air mattress, a bed and breakfast. Two product designers who came out of needing to pay for an apartment and space decided to launch a minimum viable product of a room-sharing platform with their home. There was a design conference in town, so they had the idea to offer it to attendees. Brian and Joe created a simple site with minimal functionality to list their apartments. At the same time, they also used several photos of the quarries-loft. Several volunteers tested the website and provided their feedback. That day, they had only three customers, but later, there were thousands of customers.
Source: Link
Launched in 2008, their MVP has become an incredibly convenient solution as they strive to help both property owners and travelers. Thus, the classic MVP, which started as a basic project and went through the testing stage to a successful product, turned into a huge business.
This is just the first of 10 success stories that started as MVP development. Very soon, the business owners realized that there were many more customers of the service than numbers, so they expanded their offers. Thanks to this, everyone who wants to can rent out their home in any city or country.
Source: Link
Dropbox has an equally intriguing MVP history. The company itself was founded by the American computer programmer Drew Houston in 2007. We now know Dropbox as a popular cloud storage service. It is currently used by about 400 million users worldwide.
MVP Dropbox
While studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Houston came up with the idea of easily and securely sharing large files over the Internet.
However, can you imagine that this startup didn’t even have a real product at the time of its creation. Dropbox wanted to create an online storage for files. However, they should have dared to invest huge funds in creating an architecturally complex program and developing solutions for file synchronization. Dropbox instead started with a 3-minute explainer video.?
Source: Link
Smart and cost-effective research allowed the team to be sure of the demand for their product. Driven by this, Dropbox stepped up development after releasing the product to the public.
Today, Zappos is a large and successful brand-name shoe and clothing store. Now many stores start or continue their shopping on the Internet. However, in 1999, for Nick Swinmurn, it was a hypothesis that needed to be tested. After all, at that time, people were still determining whether customers would be interested in selling shoes over the Internet.
MVP Zappos
The problem of finding shoes drove Nick. Long walks in the shops very rarely brought him a dream pair. That is why he thought, why not create an online store so that everyone can find the perfect shoes. However, he did not want to throw away thousands on an untested idea.
So Nick came up with his MVP strategy, where he would visit local stores in San Francisco, take pictures of their shoe selections and upload them to the website. If a user placed an order, they simply bought that pair from the store and shipped it to the customer. He created a value chain without having an existing product or store.
After hundreds of shoes, boots or sandals, Nick and his colleague Tony Shane started buying shoes in bulk from suppliers. Zappos started as an MVP, but grew into a successful company.
This type of MVP is common for retail startups. He manually performed functions that he later automated, and checked how ready the Americans were for such an innovation. After launching a minimally viable product, Swinmurn started looking for partners and released a full-featured solution. This allowed him to earn over $1 billion in sales. His solution was subsequently acquired by Amazon in 2009 for $1.2 billion