What Is MVP and Why Is It Necessary?

Most tech companies tend to fail because of their sudden approach to building a software product with predicting the risk analysis. Therefore, it’s crucial to play as safe as possible while developing a new software product. This is where the Minimum Viable product comes into the picture. 

What is an MVP?

In simpler terms, a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a version of a product with adequate features to adopt early customers followed by the validation of products in the early development cycle. MVP plays an essential role in helping the product team with user feedback. It also helps in further iteration and improvement of the product in various industries such as Software etc. 

Difference Between MVP, Proof of Concept & Prototype

Firstly, let’s clear some MVP misconceptions before discussing the benefits of developing an MVP for your tech projects. 

 Now, you might be wondering how MVP is any different from the prototype since it is the early version of the product? 

As the name implies, an MVP is a fundamental version and the ready-to-market version of the product. On the other hand, A prototype is all about traversing the idea and visualizing it in the best way possible. Moreover, this gives you an overview of the entire look and feel of your app but it is not entirely the whole product. Another term that is frequently misunderstood when it comes to MVP is Proof of Concept (POC). It’s different from an MVP and a prototype as it is used to test assumptions on the concept of your product and can be further implemented in development. 

Therefore, proof of concept tops the list followed by a prototype and an MVP. 

Importance of Developing an MVP

Now that you’re familiar with the definition and differences between related concepts, let’s have a closer look at how developing an MVP can prove to be beneficial for Software development projects. 

Identify your core value proposition

Developing an MVP allows you to analyze the uniqueness of your idea and what value you can provide to your customers. It also helps you resolve specific issues of your target audience. Therefore, it's essential to concentrate on what matters the most by setting it as a priority. 

Learn what users Think

It is probably the most important benefit of them all. The feedback of early adopters is crucial for determining the appropriateness of the product to its target audience and how it can meet the demands of the end-users. Thus, an MVP is released to discover how your end-users feel about the offerings of your product resulting in the enhancement of future development. 

Save Money

The whole objective behind the creation of MVP is to obtain the best results at minimum cost. With MVP, one can focus on developing the essential features of the product rather than establishing a complex system. As a result, there is a high reduction in production costs.

Release the Product quickly

With the creation of an MVP, one gets the privilege to shorten the time to markets to weeks instead of months. Moreover, pushing the release faster also allows you to drive better user engagement and build strong relationships with your clients. 

Leave room for future growth

Since MVP is an early version of your product, it might serve as the best opportunity to lead the creation of something valuable for the customer base. Therefore, evaluation of what worked and what did not results in an enormous success of your project. 

Process of Building an MVP

Now let’s get familiar with the best practices and a detailed process that is followed to develop MVP at Miquido. 

Scoping and estimation

It’s essential to understand the basics to carry forward with the development of MVP. It involves understanding business plans, adding features to digital products followed by general ideation. The objective of this phase is to define the scope of the project along with an estimation and schedule for development. 

Workshops and Preparation

Several details of the project such as product’s appearance, product strategy, tech requirements are being discussed in an active initiation of brainstorming workshops. This phase can be summarized by wireframes, design drafts, and gathering resources for building the minimum viable product. 

Development

The overall creation of an MVP starts with a planning session followed by weekly sprints resulting in the project tasks. It also helps in the step-by-step building of an MVP. Our team focuses on completing the designs, setting up the backend, and finishing the development of an MVP within three months. 

Product release

It’s the responsibility of software developers to ensure the smooth functioning of the software before the product goes live. We also provide maintenance and support once the product is live. 

Product Growth

The ultimate release of MVP in the market allows room for user feedback and gathering insights based on the same. It completely depends on you if one relies on the usage of the latest release of MVP or wants to develop additional features based on the real-time data. Thus, leading to the creation of a successful product. 

Summary

To conclude, MVP is the most efficient solution to validate the idea of a product, gather user feedback, and do the real-time analysis of data for further enhancement in the development. Therefore, it has become an essential part of an emerging business by saving time and cost in the process.