MVP Development for Startups: Fresh Look on the App Development

Minimum Viable Product or simply MVP became the industry standard for many entrepreneurs looking to deliver a user-centric product in a short amount of time. However, there are many recurring issues when it comes to developing an MVP.

Entrepreneurs frequently struggle with the MVP development for startup, not with the ideology. Which might easily result in a complicated product with which people have difficulty connecting. That is one of the reasons why so many startups are failing year after year. So to dissect relevant issues and gain more insight into the MVP in startup, our startup app development company has prepared this article.

When one is building MVP in entrepreneurship, the goal is to accelerate the process of taking your product or service from concept to commercialization. At the same time, your development team continues to iterate and enhance your product.

The central importance of startup MVP development is set in the following advantages that many entrepreneurs commonly use for their businesses.

Define the Scope of the Product

That is the first startup MVP stage towards comprehending your user's wants. It begins with the establishment of a distinct value proposition (UVP). It is identifying the fundamental solution to your user's problem.

This UVP will be a continual point of reference throughout the MVP development process, ensuring that the user is always put first. The next stage of the product scope is to gain a better understanding of those target users. In other words, a stakeholder analysis.

Once you've defined your UVP and researched your target customers, you can map their journey through the product, dubbed user stories. This preliminary study will ensure that only the features needed to solve your users' problems go to the development stage.

User Experience/User Interface Analysis

At this point in creating your MVP, you should have designed the UX flows and created UX wireframes and UI mockups. That will assist you in visualizing the user journeys established in the first stage and give you an idea of the final product's appearance.

Definition of the Good

Another critical step is transforming a concept into a product. That necessitates defining and refining the product's operation. Market research, business analysis, and the development of use cases or scenarios should all be included in this discovery phase. In simple terms, the objective is to answer the following question: what will the product do?

Additionally, during startup development, the team must evaluate costs and possible revenue and sketch up a low-fidelity design, typically in the form of storyboards. The product development team must settle on a business plan for the product, such as subscription, freeware, or licensing.

Prototyping

The following step will involve developing further high-fidelity prototypes to demonstrate how the system should operate. That includes developing wireframes and screen flows and supporting the proposed system with backend development.

Personas should be built in parallel with defining the user experience. To further idea validation, early focus group testing across use cases should be undertaken.

Design

After receiving early comments, a detailed design phase can commence. During this phase, development teams decide how the MVP product will be built, including the application's design and architecture. Each stage of the design process should be meticulously recorded in order to be referred to (and, if necessary, altered) during the build and validation phases.

Construction & Validation

As you can see, a significant amount of work is required before beginning to construct the MVP product. Without the previous processes providing the basis, the build may vary from your product vision or fail to serve your target market.

After completing these steps, you should proceed to the build and validation stage. That is where you carry out the detailed design, often in stages. This stage must be iterative as your MVP developers compare the build to your product vision; the detailed design is likely to evolve as you learn during the construction process, and changes in one phase can cascade into the others.

Testing & Deployment

Once you are finished with developing MVP, it's nearly time to put your product in the hands of people. However, you must first conduct any final testing necessary to confirm that your product is stable and conforms to your first user stories.

You can securely launch your after identifying and resolving any major concerns. After launching your MVP, use the build, measure, learn cycle to gather feedback and iterate quickly. That begins with tracking and analyzing user feedback.

Then you compare that input to your user stories to determine how to answer your consumers' problems better. Finally, you incorporate the new features into your product by applying what you've learned. That guarantees that when your product grows, it retains a user-centric focus.

In practice, development teams write code, and testers create use cases, resulting in a fully-functional version of the MVP product. MVPs come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Since we have already discussed the definition and primary benefits of the main topic already, let's examine the most popular MVP types and some actual examples from history.

Landing page MVP

As expected, a landing page MVP refers to the process of constructing a short landing page to showcase your product or service. The objective is to provide prospective clients a rough idea of what you have to offer and a call to action, whether it's to join up or place a pre-order.

You do not even need to have a business in this situation. The objective is to make small tests on your offer. And if the people will discover your website and slowly begin interacting with it, you may analyze the data to see whether or not the target audience is at all interested in the solution.

Thus, your expenditures are limited to the cost of a landing page plus the cost of your advertising campaign. That is the method employed by Joel Gascoigne when he launched his two-page LP (description & pricing) for Buffer, which contained no actual functionality.

Buffer's landing page MVP is an excellent example of how to design an MVP for a startup.

Video MVP

Another alternative for a minimal viable product is to record a promotional video or an explanation video, upload it on YouTube, and monitor its views and reviews. The good news is that compelling films frequently go viral, triggering an automated word-of-mouth promotion campaign. The bad news is that few videos achieve that standard, and predicting which one will be is impossible. Creating a video clip is far less time-consuming than building an entire product. It worked for DropBox, so why should it not work for you?

Crowdfunding MVP

A crowdfunding campaign is another excellent option to get your project off the ground without depleting the family budget.

What you do in this scenario is create a concise variation of your concept, or even a prototype. After that, share it via one of the prominent crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter or SeedInvest Technology.

A crowdsourced MVP is truly a win-win situation. If your idea is successful, you will get the necessary funds to invest your idea in the market. If it does not, you have incurred no loss. The only disadvantage is that your concept may be stolen and compromised. However, you are not required to give out all of the essential elements. Additionally, if the idea is brilliant, you will obtain finance before the plagiarists leap from their beds.

Pebble is one of the most spectacular crowdfunding MVP success stories. In 2012, after running out of early funds for his groundbreaking smartwatch, Eric Migicovsky decided to try his luck on Kickstarter. Guess what happened next? A $10 million investment resulted in the sale of over half a million watches in two years.

Indeed, the brand duplicated its success a few years later, earning another eight-figure sum. Pebble's crowdfunding MVP is an excellent example of how to design a startup MVP.

MVP with a single feature

Finally, but certainly not least, a single feature product may be the perfect sort of MVP for you. The goal here is to provide a service composed entirely of a single critical feature.

As an example, suppose you want to create an online photo editing tool that includes a variety of cool filters, albums, and crop tools. To get things started and demonstrate that there is potential, you choose one excellent filter and create an app that allows users to analyze and share one photo at a time.

That will necessitate minimal capital expenditures, low server capacity, and overall production simplification. If it is well-received, you can continually expand. A primary example of a successful single-feature MVP is Virgin Airlines, which began operating only one plane between two airports in London and Newark, New Jersey.

Now that you're familiar with the concept and lots of MVP products, it's time to begin developing a startup MVP for your own business. There are five significant milestones on this path:

1. Budget allocation

Before initiating any product development process, it is critical to determine how much money you will require and are prepared to spend. When one speaks about the MVP for startups, we naturally presume a limited budget. Everyone has their constraints, and what may be sufficient for a mobile application or a web service is almost certainly excessive for a basic landing page. As a result, examine your options and establish a reasonable budget for the job first!

2. Determine the type of MVP that is most appropriate for your requirements.

As discussed previously, each initiative requires a unique type of MVP to get them off the ground, pun intended. Whichever one is most appropriate for your goals is entirely up to you, but here are some broad guidelines:

If you're promoting your own product and all you require is reaching your clients and providing them webspace to investigate your offering, a landing page MVP is all you truly need.

Are you looking to mass-produce an existing product, or are you capable of creating a unique prototype to present to prospective investors? Then a crowdfunding MVP is the ideal way to raise the finances necessary to scale.

Have a brilliant idea and want to explore if it has the potential to disrupt the market? Consider creating a video MVP in which you explain the concept in basic language or with small graphic design to inform the world about your idea and determine whether it has the potential to explode.

If you're just starting a side hustle, such as a small retail shop, and especially if you're primarily targeting young adults, then remember the next line. Social Media MVP is an excellent place to start to present your service and create an initial client pool while properly aligning your budget.

3. Identify your intended audience

After establishing a budget and determining the optimal MVP type for your objectives, begin constructing a raw picture of your target audience. What type of customer are you dealing with, what are their requirements and aims, and most importantly, how can your product assist in achieving their goals? Which features would be most appealing to your clients?

Consider the primary benefits that will entice your potential clients and focus on offering them. The rule of thumb here is similar to that of space travel voyages — take what is necessary onboard.

4. Assemble a competent crew

Now that you've determined what type of product you require and what features your target customer wants, it's time to create it. At this point, it is critical to have a whole team or individual experts in the field of your project that could assist you in pushing the technological (and creative) envelope. Whether you’re going to recruit designers, back-end developers, or QA testers, or a professional software development team, you will need that experience to differentiate your MVP and win over the crowd.

5. Make marketing investments

Finally, but certainly not least, marketing. They assert that a good product sells itself, which is accurate. Consider Apple as an example. Unless you're mass-producing a famous digital gadget company or something similar, your product will require a solid starting point from the public, where it will pick up your idea and spread your name worldwide.

Thus, PPC, SEO, social media marketing, or influencer marketing - and relevant advertising technology in 2022 is at your disposal. However, its effectiveness is heavily reliant on your budget and target demographic.

The implementation of the MVP can be challenging for startups since it requires diverse skill sets, some of which may require specialized knowledge. Often, startups lack the resources necessary to cover every skill gap. A lengthy hiring procedure can bog down operations when speed to market is critical.

To implement an MVP approach successfully, companies should consider partnering with a trusted partner who can either fill in skill gaps with external expertise or assist with the complete development lifecycle.

When you engage with an MVP development business, you may dramatically reduce the time it takes to market. The following are some of the advantages of partnering with a company that specializes in MVP development:

• Acceleration of development cycles
• There is no waiting period for hiring - you can instantly begin working with a team
• One needs specialized software engineers for your unique product development
• Adaptability to changing development requirements
• Proven techniques for expediting MVP product development

To summarize, product development in the future will no longer be solely about executing ideas. Product development in the future will be considerably more user-centric. That is why a large number of entrepreneurs go for creating a MVP. It enables you to create a significant product for its intended audience. It is user-centric that produces good metrics since the MVP in development process is focused on a narrower scope, which is less expensive and faster to market.