Why is a Minimum Viable Product(MVP) Crucial for Overall Business Growth

Software development is a very demanding process. Not only does it require an investment of time, effort, and resources- the capital involved in developing the product can go for a toss if the product is not well received in the market.

A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) caters to developing the most relevant and basic amount of functionality in a software product. An MVP can give your business insight into market needs, the future scope of development and even help you save on investing additional capital! Airbnb is one such application that released its MVP to the market first, followed by the full-fledged product upon good audience reaction. They created a simple website and offered short-term accommodation on a rental basis in a few cities. After the success of its MVP, AirBnB has spread across, globally.

This article will take you through the concept of an MVP, its advantages for your business, and some steps to conceptualize an MVP for your business.

What is an MVP?

An MVP is a “smaller version” of a product, created with only the most important features. The main aim of an MVP is to check and test its reception among the target audience and gauge its market performance, before adding on more features that can comprise cost and time-intensive elements.

An MVP can lay a solid foundation for your product by creating an early buzz in the market by giving the audience a glimpse of the product, analyzing the scope of obtaining potential customers, acting on user’s feedback to better the product post MVP stage, work on existing marketing strategies to improve them and grab the attention of investors and loyal users by keeping them excited for the product in its entirety.

MVP Development plays a key role in web/mobile development and design. It creates a path to design, test, and deliver the final product by efficiently utilizing business capital, time, and resources. Understand that an MVP is not just a fraction of a part of the product’s functionality. It is the final version of the product but designed with just the important or necessary features.

Let’s take a look at the business advantages of creating an MVP.

Why Should You Build an MVP?

#1 Minimum Time-to-Market

The sooner you release your product to the market, the higher the chances of your business standing apart from the competition. This is because there may be multiple businesses building on a similar idea and ready to release the same at any instant! MVP development takes considerably less time to roll out, which ultimately increases the chances of your product being seen and tested by end-users.

Additionally, your business avoids re-work while pushing out a product that is not well received in the market. An MVP version gives your team enough bandwidth to improve on the existing model, rather than creating something from scratch again!

#2 Economically Feasible

One of the most important benefits of creating an MVP is its cost-effectiveness. Once this initial version of the product is released into the market with specific functionalities, you can gauge the market’s response to the same. This will help your business decide what to tweak in the product, what additional features can be added or what features can be eliminated. It is a smart move to lower your investments in the beginning so that you can have a sufficient capital margin to dedicate costs to additional product functionalities in the near future.

Additionally, if your product is not well received in the market, there is not much to lose as compared to creating the whole product and then realizing that it has failed.

#3 Understanding User Requirements

An MVP paves a clear way to understand what the user exactly wants, well ahead of time, so that these changes can be incorporated into the product development schedule. MVP development gives you the freedom to try and experiment with the products received and engage with your target customer base. Customer feedback can then well reduce the gap between user needs and the actual solution proposed by your business

How to Plan out an MVP?

Here are a few to-do’s to keep in mind while formulating a plan for your MVP.

Step 1: Market Research

Your product needs to fulfill the target users’ needs/ wants/ requirements. Conduct surveys amongst users, observe the work done by competitors, and find unique elements that can be used to make your product idea stand out from the rest.

Step 2: Value Addition

Your MVP product will include features that have to add value to the market’s requirements. It should not merely be a fragment or part of the whole product, but a concise version that will answer questions like “how is the product meeting audience needs?”, “What value is my product bringing to the market?”, “What are the most essential features that can be developed in this sprint that deems the product as “complete” ?”

Step 3: Zero-in on MVP Features

Prioritize all the features that the MVP will cater to. Keep in mind the questions asked during Step #2 for a clear decision-making process. You may also categorize these features based on priority: high priority, medium priority, and low priority. The low priority ones simply mean that depending on market reaction, these features may be developed.

Step 4: Designing the User Flow

In the MVP stage, it is advised to keep a clean UI and develop basic I/O features that are convenient for users to navigate. The focus should be to get the essential tasks done- for instance, in a delivery app, the essential features of the MVP would be login, profile set up, search product, add the product to cart, payment, and checkout.

Final Thoughts

An MVP is beneficial to any business- be it a startup or a well-established company. It reduces market risks, saves business time, ensures appropriate investment of capital, and saves business efforts. It shows the customer how important their opinion is, by listening to and incorporating their feedback. This in turn fosters a good brand image in the customer’s mind. To learn how our professionals can help you in putting your best foot forward in creating value-added products and services, send an email at contact@fargowiz.com or request the below quotation form.