Minimum Viable Product
Shabina Dhother
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The phrase “Minimum Viable Product” or MVP has become a catchphrase in the constantly changing world of entrepreneurship and startup culture. This approach has completely changed how companies implement their ideas and has been essential to the growth of innumerable enterprises. But what exactly is an MVP, and why is it so important in the hostile business environment of today?
In this blog article, we will examine the idea of a Minimum Viable Product in-depth, including its definition, importance, and the processes necessary to create one. Understanding and applying the ideas of an MVP can be the key to your success, whether you’re a budding entrepreneur with a ground-breaking idea or an established company trying to innovate.
What is Minimum Viable Product?
A minimum viable product or MVP can be understood as a trial product with all the basic elements or features that is released to a given set of people to use and provide feedback on the same, before the actual development or launch of the product. The main purpose behind an MVP is to collect data from potential customers about the new product or feature with the least amount of effort and cost.
MVP got its name from its functionality itself where M represents the basic foundational structure for the product or feature idea, V represents the sufficiency of the product or feature to be adopted by the potential test customers or early adopters and P stands for product that a user can use and test, something tangible that can be seen touched or felt.
Purpose of building Minimum Viable Product
You must be wondering as to why the concept of ‘minimum’ in MVP was adopted and why not ‘maximum’. Think of it this way that when you have a new idea or hypothesis for a new product, feature or service, for you it may seem like the best idea or solution to a certain problem but that might not actually be the case. It might be the case that your idea or solution to a problem is good but the current demand from customers is of something else, pertaining to the current global and economic situations.
In such a case, before actually investing your time, efforts and funds on your idea or hypothesis, you would like to know if your hypothesis is something that customers approve of? Because at the end we all know that ‘customer is the king’.
This is the reason as to why you test your idea or hypothesis with the least amount of time, effort and funds, hence ‘minimum’ – Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
Examples of Minimum Viable Product
Now that we know and understand the meaning and purpose of an MVP, let’s look at some real world examples where a minimum viable product was put to use before actually launching the new product, idea, feature or service.
- The very first real world example we will look at is ‘Instagram’.
Kevin Systrom, along with Mike Krieger is the founder of Instagram. But Instagram is the result of MVP testing of the product called ‘Burbn’. The founders initially had the idea of Burbn which was built to make people check in and share their views of various locations. But the product idea was not approved by people and from the results of MVP, it was found that apart from checking in and sharing views, people are more interested in sharing photos along with the views and check-ins. This MVP result helped founders enhance their product based on the demand and requirement of the people and hence ‘Instagram’ came into our lives and look what part it shares in our everyday lives!
- The next real world example at which we will look at is one of the shortest and most successful results of an MVP – ‘Airbnb’.
The founders of Airbnb faced a lot of trouble when they had guests from all around the globe for various conferences and meetings. You might think that there were hotels and guest rooms. Yes, but there were times when there was no sufficient accommodation which fits into the budget and has all the basic needed amenities. That was when the idea of Airbnb stuck in the head of founders and when they ran an MVP for it, customers approved the idea like anything!
- Let’s look at the last (but not the least) real world product as the result of MVP – ‘Amazon’.
Yes, you read it right! Amazon, one of the multi millionaire companies in today’s time is also a result of MVP. The very first version of the concept of Amazon in 1994 was that of a book store where people can buy books at a cheaper rate. That version of Amazon was widely accepted by people on which the founder Jeff Bezos further added more services and features and gave us the ‘Amazon’ we know and look at today! The initial idea of the Amazon is almost the same as it’s today’s version but it’s the new features and services that made the difference.
The above mentioned are just a few examples from many but there are many other products, features, ideas or services that are a result of MVPs. To quote a few – Dropbox, Facebook, Uber, AngelList, Buffer, Spotify, Zappos, Foursquare and many more.
Advantages of Minimum Viable Product
In the above section we saw the journey of a few successful MVP results that are a part of our everyday lives. But to think of it, you might wonder what possible advantages an MVP can provide that all the companies – big or small choose to run it. Let’s look at some of the advantages that an MVP can provide-
- MVP helps you test your idea, product, service or feature before you actually launch a full fledged product in the market.
- MVP testing of the product before the actual launch gives you time and space to enhance your product, service or feature and align it with the customers’ needs and demands.
- If a product, idea or service is not accepted by the customers in an MVP, it implies that if launched, it will not be successful. Hence, an MVP helps you save a lot of time, effort and funds.
- For building up a huge product, service or feature, you will probably require funds from investors and winning stakeholders. To gain their trust in your product, service or feature, you can use a successful MVP results to have their confidence that the product, service or feature you are trying to build will be widely accepted by the people.
- MVP helps in building an early relation between the stakeholders and early adopters which gives them priceless feedback on their product and if the product, service or idea is successfully adopted by early adopters, they also spread the word about your product, service or feature.
- MVP helps you understand the needs and demands of the customers which you can further align with the current and future global and economic conditions and enhance your product, service or feature accordingly.
- MVP approach also helps you in providing constant updates on your product, service or idea flexibly in the current fast paced market.
Defining Your Minimum Viable Product
We learnt the various advantages that an MVP can provide and also looked at the various examples where all the small and big companies used MVPs to their benefit. I am sure that by now and after learning all this, you are encouraged to run an MVP for your product, service or feature as well but the question you might be thinking about is how to make and run an MVP? Don’t worry! We got you covered. In this section we will look at how you can make an MVP for your product, service or feature and make it to your use!
- The very first step in defining an MVP for your product is to identify and understand the needs of the market. Look at the current economic and global situations and try to find out the long term goal that you will be focusing on with your product, service or idea.
- Once you have analysed the market situation and your long term goal, try to find out the problems or issues that you will be tackling with your product, service or idea.
- Now that you have thought about both the problem and solution that you will be referring to, try to analyse the success rate of the idea, product or service you have in mind in order to resolve the issue.
- While planning out the MVP, make sure that it aligns with your long term business goals and success criteria.
- The next step is to define your customer’s persona and target audience for your product. Along with this you also need to map a user journey that a potential customer might experience. The best way to do this is to try and put yourself in their shoes to understand their behaviour and patterns.
- Once you have all this ready, the next phase is execution where you put your planned MVP in a development phase. Here you will have the skeleton ready for your product, service or feature which will have the main features for your early adopters to use, test and provide you feedback.
- Once you have the first version of your product, service or feature ready, share it with early adopters and collect feedback.
That’s it! You have successfully defined an MVP for your product, service or feature. The next step will be to reflect back on the feedback collected from early adopters and enhance your product, service or feature, if needed. If not, then you are good to go to develop and launch the full fledged version of your product, service or feature.
Conclusion
Great! You are all set to go and run your own MVP. We hope that you got a clear understanding of an MVP and this article will help you in your business journey. Note that it is very important to run an MVP even if it’s a small feature suggestion or enhancement to your already existing product or service. The best part about an MVP is that you can alway collect realistic data and stand a step ahead from the rest of the competitors.
We wish you the best for your business journey!
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FAQs
What are the key characters of Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?
The value it can generate, the future prospects it provides and the constant feedback loop are the three major characteristics of Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
What are the four different types of MVP?
Concierge MVP, Wizard of oZ MVP, Landing page MVP and Email MVP are the four different types of MVPs.
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