All of us are wondering about the ideas that work in this modern world. When we started moving along with ordering food, a start-up came up with a separate service for picking up and delivering packages within the city. That’s great! I don’t have to travel in traffic to deliver that parcel to my friends and family.
Anything and everything you need or want is done efficiently with proper guidance.
So, what is all about these new ideas? How does this work better at the early stage?
Did you know that some sample products are distributed in supermarkets to check with the ultimate customers and receive valuable feedback, so the product can be improved to the best potential in satisfying the customers? Similarly, when every Startup comes up with a new product, they release it in the market for testing which attracts the audience by triggering their curiosity to know what the product is all about. This seeks as an opportunity for the Startup to validate their idea and helps to develop their product as per the feedback. Here comes the picture of ‘MVP’- Minimum Viable Product.
What is MVP?
MVP is a product or service developed with convincing features to attract early users to validate their idea and try the product, resulting in valuable feedback. The results will be studied and analyzed to determine what works and what does not.
What is MVP?
- MVP is a product or service developed with convincing features to attract early users to validate their idea and try the product, resulting in valuable feedback. The results will be studied and analyzed to determine what works and what does not.What is MVP?
- MVP is a product or service developed with convincing features to attract early users to validate their idea and try the product, resulting in valuable feedback. The results will be studied and analyzed to determine what works and what does not.
Questions to be answered before building an MVP:
- Is the MVP aligned with your business objectives?
- Who is your target audience? What would be the specific problem you want to solve?
- What are the steps you need to take to produce the MVP?
How to create an MVP?
- 1Detail the problem you are solving
Every idea arises to solve a particular problem and that is how every Startup comes up with creative solutions. The Startups are obsessed with the idea and forget about the problem to be solved.
The Startup should be able to answer the audience “Why do I need this product?”, and “How will this benefit me?”.
The solution should solve the problem of your target audience. For example, ‘Zepto’ is a hit startup for solving the major problem of time. Zepto is an e-commerce application delivering groceries, personal care, and much more but wait this is what the other major e-commerce application does. The question here is, what makes this startup stand out?
They solve the major problem – time. This Startup ensures delivery of the order in 10 – 15 minutes.
Stand in your customer’s shoes to understand the trigger points and there you go with the problem solving.
- Know your Competitors
Once the idea is determined, it is essential to verify if the related product is already available on the market. Competitor analysis is critical and helps to figure out the specifics of the marketplace where you hold that advantage and to accordingly design a communication plan to maximize your advantage.
- List out the features – the opportunity to solve
The idea of MVP is to launch a simpler version of the product and to ensure fundamental questions are answered by the audience in the form of feedback.
Focus on solving the pain points of your target audience and should convince them of how we make it easier. - Prioritize features
Once all the possible features are listed, they should be prioritized as per the functionality test which helps in ascertaining the practical results.
By following methods this can be achieved
Prioritization Matrix– It is a tool that allows one to sort a varied set of features by order of importance. This helps in categorizing the essentials for the current stage and those that can be made use of later during product development.
Moscow Matrix– This divides the features into Must Haves, Should Haves, Could Haves, and Won’t Haves.
Choosing a method is an iterative process – only by trying different approaches the feedback is evaluated and performance measured to identify the one that meets the needs.
5. Feedback Loop
This loop explains 3 stages – Build, Measure, and Learn.
Build– The assumptions are built in the form of ideas.
Measure– The Startup measures the results received to ascertain if real progress is achieved.
Learn– The Startup decides if the existing strategy is to be altered or to be developed.
In the feedback loop, the response is measured and is significant in the process of getting the green light for developing a full-fledged product.
Drawbacks to be avoided in the process of building MVP:
Many companies end up in huge losses by failing to test the product with the audience before investing time and resources in creating the product. The MVP acts as a strategy to avoid developing products that are liable to be rejected by the audience.
- Focusing on the large target audience:
When the Startup is not sure about the target audience, the feedback will be inappropriate and will lead to difficulty in collating the same. Focus on a limited target audience to understand the early adopter’s requirements.
- A complex version of MVP:
Under real-life market conditions, Startups build an MVP with assumptions about the product. This involves the requirement of more resources, manpower, and effort and hence it is important to ensure efficiency.
MVP should be simple and understandable and the target audience should feel to know more about the product because the audience’s word of mouth plays a vital role at the beginning stage.
- Not learning from your MVP:
Every idea is never bad or good unless it is experimented with. Any feedback, positive or negative should be accepted and is equally important. It helps to understand the early adopter’s preferences and a better product is developed.
The idea of creating a new product or service in the market to solve a problem is no easy game and involves more time and energy to get it on the right track. Startups should ensure the question “Why” is answered in every aspect of the product development journey.
