Why is MVP an excellent choice for your startup?

MVP looks like the perfect option when you can make minimal contributions and get a qualitative product. Especially if you are confident in the team and you know that no bugs or shortcomings will appear. But is this what happens?

We propose honestly figure out what’s what and how it is working with this approach, discuss the pros and cons and share our view.

Is it worth to pay attention to MVP?

According to statistics, 42% of startups are left with nothing as their offer is not attractive to the market. If we look at successful examples of MVPs, it worths to emphasize on their sustainable development. Amongst the lucky ones, we can point to Uber, Twitter, Snapchat, DropBox and even Youtube. The minimally viable product should be used as a bait for the users and show their feelings about the product, disclose what should be improved and new features added. You’ll receive all the data for future upgrades, winning more users and attracting huger investments without spending a fortune on it.

What are the advantages of an MVP for a startup?

Minimal budget and a top speed

The cost of developing of MVP is lesser than the full product, and the whole process takes from six to twelfth months.

Feedback

Due to feedback, MVP is often defined as a process of continuous changes. It allows realizing what the target audience likes or dislikes, how the customer perceives it and what it generally represents on the market. At this stage, the best solution is the cupcake method and how it works. At first, you offer customers the chance to taste the cupcake so that they appreciate the dough, filling, cream and then receive feedback and make a wedding cake.

The implementation of the idea

Instead of implementing the full feature set, there is a selection from three to five main ones that will present in the MVP. The implementation of the concept is convenient: less expensive, does not require long-term marketing research and embodies your plans. You should remember that one idea comes to mind to four people around the world at the same time. Worse than failure can only be the successful implementation of your thoughts by someone else.

An acquaintance with your future investors

When a project is young and has just been rolled out to the market, with a cool idea underlying it, it may receive offers from investors. That’s great for several reasons:

• often investors are the guarantor of further product development;
• a chance to obtain experience of the product’s management;
• you can already start pre-sales and begin to cover the budget of the project.

The cost of developing of MVP is less than the full product, and the whole process takes from six to twelfth months.

What is the role of design in the MVP?

“A beautifully styled stupid proposal goes much further than a poorly crafted great idea” _{Scott Adams}

Good design is essential — it is the visual component and conciseness of the product. Ian Jursa, who is the author of the project “UX Storytellers” and the co-founder of the MOBX Conference, spoke very strongly about this: “Universal design principles have existed for a long time and will exist for a long time. If you think that your grandiose app will do without them — think again! ”. On our blog you can get acquainted with the principles of good design.

Design helps you to communicate with your target audience. It talks to visitors through the interface and how it looks. Smooth user experience and strong brand identity are the key factors of being memorized.

And, finally, the design is about the emotions that a visitor receives during interaction with the product. It separates you from your competitors because it is brighter, better and you are more user-friendly.

What happens after launching MVP?

Let’s repeat, the MVP has many advantages and one of the most remarkable is the possibility of further improvement. The post-creation process can be called a feedback loop, where you will be testing the product for a very long time, feedback-improving-testing and so on.

So, now you are for a crucial stage — testing MVP. It helps to see the user’s reaction to the interface, to find out if the design fits potential customers and understand if the project is relevant to the market or not. There are many test options: customer interviews, A/B tests, informative videos, digital prototypes, paper prototypes, one-function MVP and pre-order pages.

Many companies continually modernize their products, and good examples are Google, Booking.com, YouTube, Instagram, and many others. By informing users about updates, they receive responses on the current changes and only afterward decide if it is worth to leave it, improve or send to trash.

What do we have in the end?

“Socrates said: “know yourself”. And I say: “know your users”. And you know what? They don’t think the same way as you do.”_{Joshua Brewer}

With MVP you finally release your idea to potential customers, may already generate income, take place on the market and receive continuous feedback. As a result, time is used wisely, you are open to investors and ready to monetize your business.

While you are still thinking, someone else is already implementing it! The conclusion is obvious: be reasonable and create your MVP.

Feel free to ask questions to Halo Lab team, that is rated as a Top Ukraine Software Development Companies on DesignRush.