A minimum viable product (MVP) is a development technique in which a new product or website is developed with sufficient features to satisfy early adopters. The final features will be designed and developed by getting feedback from users.
Minimum Viable Product helps you to initiate your business or things that you are passionate about and make a profit out of them while giving you ample time for further development or enhancements. Over the years many have significantly shaped the MVP paradigm.
Here are a few guidelines to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) For a Mobile App today:
Identify the Problem – What to Solve, and For Whom
Primarily what you ought to do is figure out the problem you’re solving. Evaluate your startup business concept. It’s better to slip into the shoes of your customer and figure out why they would require the software.
How would it help them? Answer the questions and you will get a fair idea about the goal of the software and the better solution for the actual needs of future customers.
Analyze your target audience
“Future Customers” are the target audience of your business. The people who you’re expecting will purchase and utilize your product. And You have to figure out a problem that your software or product can solve for them.
Think about the personal challenges you face and find a solution to the problem. One classic example would be that of Uber, which was primarily an app that provided premium cabs on-demand in a few metropolitan areas. But despite the name premium, uber cars were surprisingly cheaper transportation that delivered convenient traveling for its customers.
Although the service was targeted at an unaffordable customer segment. All you have to do is imagine you need to develop an application or software that would save people’s money.
Jot down the vital features and prioritize them
Once you have your target audience sorted out and have a solution for your target audience problem, you can focus on the features you would want to provide through your software or product. It’s advisable to list out the primary features and the supportive features if any. You could also make a list of complementary features or add-ons that may be beneficial to your customer but not mandatory. When you have all this listed out, you can start prioritizing them.
Prioritize features as follows:
- Question yourself: Which is the most important benefit that I would want to deliver to my software or app users?
- Think further: What additional features can I offer? (Purpose of these features, and neglect the least significant ones.)
- Categorize: Segment the features under categories “˜mandatory,’ “˜complementary, and “supportive features”. You can develop a matrix with a horizontal row displaying the vital process stages underneath each stage, list the features that are dedicated to this stage.
- Define Scope: Once you have prioritized all your features, define scope of the product and proceed to build an MVP. You can initially create a prototype to see how your product looks like.
The Concierge Minimum Viable Product
Concierge MVP is something that most people seek these days. The concierge MVP is a minimum viable product where you manually guide your user through the solution to a problem.
With Concierge MVP, you develop a better product at an unendurable cost by customizing it for every customer. But it’s advisable to move on if you can’t get your customers to pay more for a better product. Jennifer Fleiss and Jennifer Hyman initiated their business “Jennifer Hyman, with this approach.
They provided an in-person dress rental service where their young customers could try and buy. This boosted their business especially among college students who felt it as a much better option when opposed to online rentals.
This led to a significant increase in the online rental business. Their initiative validated Concierge MVP. Even today some retailers have adopted this technique to try and buy in recent times.
Another classic example would be an automatic couponing program for the retail sector. Suppose your client requires a software program that sends their users coupons based on their client’s weekly purchases. And also help their clients decide which shop they could shop at to save more money.
The initial step would be to figure out from shoppers what they would purchase each week (through face to face or emails). This will enable you to direct them to the best grocery store and provide them with coupons on a weekly basis.
This will also enable the software developer to understand if/when the users don’t access the grocery store and if savings really influence their store choices. Or if they are particular about certain brands and if they are, what are their preferred food categories.
Concierge MVP can save you from investing massive effort in developing a web application. You can make better decisions by understanding which ideas will work from your hypothesis and which needs to be trashed.
MVP- Conclusion
For an app platform, you might want to have iOS, Android and web platforms. For the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) development just choose one because it’s the initial product. Once you build the MVP, test it and get the feedback from your customers and validate your hypothesis. Ensure that the app reaches the potential users at the earliest.
After the testing or validation, you can add more features to enhance your product. Always opt for a simple and clean UI. A more advanced or creative UI can be done later when more features are added or product developments are made. You should not spend more 2-3 months on developing MVP. If you are taking longer, it is not a minimum anymore.
If you’re eager to know how much it would cost to develop a successful MVP, You should remember that there are several factors to know for building a product and the most significant factor among it is project complexity.
Learn more about the MVP product development by getting in touch with us. If you have any doubts or need our help to develop an MVP, UI/UX design, Please contact us for a free technical consultation.
