MVP companies can help you with creating a minimum version of your product. It’s much more necessary than you can imagine. Building a large product is time- and cost-consuming, while a minimum version is 3-4 times lighter while solving essentially the same problems and enabling the developer to evaluate their idea.
So, this concept is quite popular, as it enables you to save money and test your idea without large risks. However, here we’ll focus not on the benefits of this method – you can find many articles about that – but on possible challenges and problems. See below its essentials, and then we’ll review MVP types and development process before focusing on the top 7 problems which you’ll probably meet.
Essentials
A minimum viable product is what you’ll need when building the first working exemplar of your idea. Neither can survive without being embodied in the form of some service or product, with design and functionality dedicated to delivering its value.
In the case depicted here, the problem is the necessity to swim to survive, and the boat with sails can solve it. Of course, modern problems are much more complex and require a lot of research, so be ready for this.
Lastly, think about yourself: your consciousness is embodied in your body, so you can read this text and operate according to your desires. Without the body, you’d hardly even realize all of this. The case with products and ideas is similar.
Let’s see several types of them and how they can help you to build a body for your idea.
Examples: 7 Types
Let’s see examples of how you can organize your product. Depending on the type of your final product, choose the approach that fits you best or combine several of them.
Wireframe MVP is a static representation or prototype of the product. It has very limited functionality, but selected users can test it, so you’ll see how you can improve the idea to make it viable. to gather feedback on the overall concept and design. It helps validate the idea and gather initial user impressions before investing in full development.
The landing page contains a basic webpage that highlights the product’s value. The main task is communicating with users, showing them what they can expect, and collecting their emails and other data if necessary. If your product can bring a lot of attention or tend to form a community around it, use the landing page. It’ll catch user interest, and you can validate the demand for the product.
The concierge approach is perfect if you don’t require a lot of automatization and can proceed with user requests manually.
The core functionality of the product is manually performed by the development team or a dedicated person instead of being fully automated. It allows you to test and validate the user experience and value proposition before investing in complex development.
The “Wizard of Oz” approach develops a fully functional product, which is directed manually. It’s similar to the concierge approach, but in this case, the aim is to see how the product can be organized in the best way.
While manually handling some or all of the backend processes. It gives the impression of an automated solution while allowing you to learn from user interactions and gather feedback.
Single-Feature: Instead of developing a complete product, focus on building a minimum set of features that solves a specific problem or addresses a particular need. This approach allows you to test and validate the core functionality of your product with a smaller scope.
Piecemeal MVP integrates several external resources to build your product, fully outsourcing it. So, you can validate it without heavy investments and if everything is OK, start building it!
You can also find a bunch of well-known companies which succeeded starting from an MVP. Check Airbnb, Groupon, Uber, Spotify, and Instagram stories. We guarantee you tons of inspiration when you’ll learn in detail how these top companies began.
Developing
Before understanding what can be wrong, let’s see how to do it right.
- Define the functionality to understand what it will be (proof-of-concept).
- Research the market, users, and existing products to point out the development scheme.
- Create a prototype of your idea by pointing out how it’ll work and look.
- Design and develop the product with the core functionality (remember the first picture?)
- Test it with customers, gather metrics, and carefully analyze them to refine the product. It’s the main purpose of your enterprise now.
Now, we can focus on the top 7 mistakes which may arise to prevent you from the realization of the plan above.
MVP Mistakes: Top 7
This article revolves around problems, not opportunities. You can figure out what you’ll do, and our task, for now, is to show you what can be wrong in your scenario. So, let’s begin.
Lack of research: you should know as much as possible about the market, users, competitors, and technologies that you may use. If you have a shortage at least in some of these points, it can lead to a poorly designed product.
- Create a separate document or scheme with all four research directions and record information.
Lack of balance, which means that you have no clear plan and substantiated deadlines. Building an MVP should be a proactive approach, but too much hustle will break everything down. You can spoil everything you’ve created, then be demotivated, and the resulting product will be much worse than it could be.
- Following a clear plan with a commitment is always better than trying to fulfill everything in a hustle.
The unclear mission of the final product will lead to the MVP without a destination and aims. How can it provide a compelling user experience if you don’t know which problem it will solve and how it’ll change the world, eventually? In this case, users will probably be quickly detached.
- Define the mission before the development and always be sure that you remember it and slightly modify it when necessary.
Overloading the MVP with many features and functionalities will delay the release, cost you a lot of money, and can easily be in vain. The purpose is to focus on the core value and test it. Additional features can rather hinder this value at this stage, so don’t let them do this.
- Focus on the mission (see the previous point) to develop only core functionality.
Insufficient feedback will spoil your opportunities for improvement, so make sure to involve customers in your product. With regular testing and iteration, the main option of MVP, which you remember from the previous section, will be covered.
- Engage users, communicate with them, and keep their feedback.
Poor execution includes the case you saw on the diagram above when you fail to develop all crucial elements of the final product, making it too raw. In addition, issues include poor project management and lack of expertise and collaboration. All these flaws increase the chance of failure, especially taken together.
- Ensure proper communication, validate the expertise of your developers, designers, writers, and managers, and make sure that the final minimum product will be viable.
Ignoring metrics when you launch the product will lead to you relying on assumptions and beliefs rather than clear data. Without clear measurement and validation processes, it becomes difficult to assess the success or failure of the MVP accurately.
- Always track all metrics and have an actual list of them.
Conclusion
When designing the application, a minimum version of your product is a must-have. During the development, make sure that you avoid all these mistakes. Check whether your team is well-managed and harmonious, all feedback, metrics, and research data are gathered, and the product is not overloaded and has a clear mission.
Take care of that, and your minimum product will be indeed viable, increasing the chance that the final embodiment of your idea will skyrocket!