What is the concept behind an MVP? And why do companies continue to use this model when creating their products and their services?
An MVP, or minimum viable product, is a key concept in the Lean Startup methodology. It allows you to quickly identify opportunities with high growth potential and establish a development plan for your initiative. An MVP is a prototype of a product that has just enough functionality to satisfy early customers and provide feedback for future development of the real product. The idea behind an MVP is that if you build something that is too complex or too advanced for your target audience, you’ll end up spending more time building it than you need to and you’ll be targeting the wrong problem, the wrong customer. By launching a minimally viable product first, you can begin to build a community of early adopters around your product, which allows you to get feedback on what features they would like to see and continually improve the product based on that feedback.
So, it’s important to note that an MVP is not an unfinished product; it must solve enough problems that your users are willing to pay for it. The most important aspect of an MVP is that you only build what is minimally viable for your first customers. This means refraining from adding features (even if they are necessary) and avoiding over-developing the solution.
Main elements of an MVP
- Depending on the type of MVP, the prototype proves or solves a basic problem for a group of early adopters.
- It contains only the basic functionality needed to serve a group of users (early adopters).
- It can be produced quickly and tested with real users.
- It is imperfect, that is, it can be improved as you test it.
Examples of MVPs
It is increasingly common for companies to use MVPs as a way to reduce risk. When developing a new product, service or feature, companies can create an MVP and send it out into the world as a test. This allows them to see if there is interest in the product before investing too much time and money in it.
Here are four classic examples of MVPs:
The first version of Amazon.com was a simple online bookstore that allowed users to select books, put them in their virtual shopping cart and make a transaction with their credit card. This allowed the company to test its e-commerce concept without having to invest in creating a product management or inventory control platform…
Source : First Versions (lien https://www.firstversions.com/2016/07/amazon.html)
Coca-Cola tested more than 100 flavors and different bottle designs before choosing the ones we know and love today.
Source : First Versions (lien https://www.firstversions.com/2015/02/coca-cola.html)
Before Airbnb became “Airbnb” in 2009, a year after its launch, it was “Airbed and Breakfast”. Two years later, the company started sending professional photographers to homes and realized that homes with beautiful photos received 40% more bookings. Over time, they gradually added new features. Today, Airbnb is an online travel agency with over 2 million listings in 190 countries, but it started very small.
Dropbox also started small and simple, offering users only a landing page to validate interest, leading to incremental development. Additionally, the company offered only 2 gigabytes of storage space for their files. To reach potential users, they made a video showing what the service would look like if it was built. They launched this video as a “product” and then started getting sign-ups from users who wanted access to it when it was ready. This gave them enough money to build the actual product (a file sharing tool), which they later launched and started working on based on user feedback. Dropbox then grew by adding additional features that users wanted, including file sharing, photo galleries, etc.
The MVP concept can be applied to any stage of product development. This means that you can adapt the MVP concept for use from problem validation to the integration of new features. Here are some other examples, less formalised but more entertaining, that we suggest to inspire you:
‘Hand of God’: Brazilian Nurses Use Gloves Filled with Warm Water to Create ‘Human Touch’ for Covid-19 Patients Source : https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/hand-of-god-brazilian-nurses-use-gloves-filled-with-hot-water-to-create-human-touch-for-covid-19-patients-3622187.html
How can you use the MVP?
You can use the MVP throughout your product development process. The MVP will help you confirm many types of business assumptions:
Validate the existence of the problem your product will solve
An important element in the concept of an MVP is that it is something that proves that your solution solves a problem for the user or customer. This can be a physical product, a digital service or a feature of an existing product. The key is that the idea is validated by the customer through continuous feedback. You can do this by showing your solution and observing the behavior of the potential consumer. Also, you can create surveys or conduct problem interviews.
Estimate the size of your market and confirm if your solution answers the identified problem
A minimum viable product will help you confirm whether or not there is a market for a solution like yours. Although it may seem counterintuitive, an effective MVP is not necessarily the simplest possible version of your product. Rather, it is the version that allows you to start learning what works and what doesn’t with real customers who will actually use your product. This version of your product will help you find out if people will buy what you are selling. You can use a template, a prototype or do solution interviews to gather information about how your target audience sees your solution.
Include the customer in the product development process
It’s good to be able to launch something quickly, but it’s even better if you do it right and involve the customer in the process at an early stage. If you can involve them as early as possible in the product development process, you will be able to increase your success rate. The reason is that a company that takes this approach shortens its time-to-market, reduces development costs and risks.
Start developing your business model
If you are an entrepreneur or small business looking to develop a product or service, the MVP is an extremely valuable tool that will help you understand the answer to many questions such as: “Will people buy my product?”, “How much money are they willing to pay for my product?” or “What forms and channels of payment should I accept?”
The MVP is a practical product development tool that is used by many companies as they grow. An MVP helps entrepreneurs get started on developing a project with minimal investment of money and time. It allows founders to spend less money during product development and ensure they are building something their customers want before investing more resources into it.
In this post, we shared ideas on how to use minimum viable product in developing your business ideas. If you’re ready to start building your minimum viable product, we invite you to check out the MVP types in our experimentation mapping.