

Building A Successful Startup: MVP Development Strategies For Businesses
Posts by Alan TaylorApril 29, 2023
MVP – Minimum Viable Product – development is a powerful strategy widely used by businesses in several industries.
Successful services like Dropbox and Airbnb have used MVP development to test the market and validate their product ideas before launching their full-featured products.
But what advantages can this approach bring to your business, and how can you successfully implement it? We will take you through that in this article.
Keep reading to get a better understanding of the concept and process of MVP development as well as the best strategies behind this product development technique.
Understanding MVP Development
Minimum Viable Product refers to the process of creating a simplified version of a product containing only its core features.
The goal is to draw the attention of early adopters and test the market demand for a product before investing more in the final, complete version of the product.
To develop a Minimum Viable Product, there are a few essential steps you must consider:
- Perform market research
- Identify your target audience
- Define the problem your product will address
- Determine the core features you need
- Develop the MVP and test it with early adopters
- Collect feedback
- Refine the product until you reach optimal user satisfaction
- Launch the product
- Iterate
MVP development is a significantly beneficial technique for testing new products because it allows businesses to create a version of their concept and get feedback from real-life customers without making a large investment.
That is especially good for startups and entrepreneurs who still do not have enough funding to take risks and can use the feedback to improve the product based on the needs and preferences of the target audience.
Additionally, MVP development reduces Time to Market, as it allows businesses to create and deliver a product faster, which ultimately plays a role in gaining an early advantage over competitors.
Market Research for MVP Development
Conducting market research allows you to gain insights into the market demand, your target audience’s needs, and your competitors’ presence.
Together, this data helps you develop a product with reduced failure risk. Skipping this step puts you at risk of failing to meet the needs and preferences of your potential users.
Here is how you can conduct market research for your project:
- Define goals and formulate key questions about your target audience, competitors, and market demand.
- Choose research methods that fit your goals.
- Split your research into two moments: primary research, where you collect data from your potential customers in interviews, surveys, focus groups, etc., and secondary research, where you focus on information from indirect sources, such as reports and competitor channels.
- Use the collected data, mainly from the primary research, to start developing your MVP.
Defining MVP Scope
Having conducted the necessary market research, it is time to shift your focus to MVP development and define the scope of your product.
That is an important step because it helps you identify the features and functionalities that make sense based on the insights you gathered in the first step.
You can employ two different techniques to determine the scope of your MVP:
MVP Canvas: a tool that creates a visual representation containing relevant information about the primary components of a Minimum Viable Product, such as the target users, the core features and functionalities, the value proposition, and the revenue streams.
MVP Feature Prioritisation: analysing and evaluating the product’s features and ranking them based on priority considering the users’ preferences and the feasibility of the features.
Designing MVP User Experience
The role of MVP developers does not stop at market analysis and feature research – ensuring the product is well-designed is also part of a successful MVP.
The user experience depends on the product design. Failing to create a product with a decent design, you risk losing your target audience due to frustration and abandonment.
To collect user feedback, gain customers, and even get the attention of potential investors, MVPs must have optimal UX design that meets user needs while being intuitive and easy to use.
To ensure high-quality UX design, you must adopt a user-centric approach, promote simplicity, use familiar patterns, test, and iterate.
Conclusion
MVP development refers to the process of designing and developing a version of a product containing only enough features to make it functional.
The goal of this technique is to test market demand and get product feedback from early adopters.
If you are a startup, an entrepreneur or even a larger business who does want to take a risk by investing in a product without any form of reassurance, here is what you should do to develop your own MVP: conduct market research, define your MV scope, and design your product’s user experience.