How to Develop an MVP App in 2022?
How to Develop an MVP App in 2022?
In today’s article, we will talk about a way not to become the owner of an unnecessary product that you spent a lot of money, time, and effort on.
When a new client comes to us with the idea of a startup, we, at Sannacode, advise, first of all, to create a MVP, and then, based on the feedback received from real usage, improve and modify the application, add more features.
And specifically, consider MVP. What it actually is and how it can help enterprises in a start-up or scaling state. We will tell you how to properly build an MVP, and about large companies that used this approach to predict success and viability at the start of their business.
What is an MVP?
MVP is a minimum viable product, the earliest version of the product that has only the necessary features sufficient to convey the fundamental values to the audience and test it on the first users.
The concept of a minimally viable product is often misinterpreted, leading to its misapplication. MVP can not be defined just as a product version with a minimum of functions, but the least resource-intensive tool for validating the economic feasibility of a unique or existing business idea, which also serves as the basis for the final offer.
Make sure that your MVP strategy focuses on testing hypotheses, rather than reducing functionality to save money. As long as the minimum viable product meets your unique value proposition, you can iterate it based on feedback from early users.
In the picture above, the DNA of the machine is expressed by its effectiveness as a way of moving from point A to point B compared to walking. Each iteration increases the scale of the product by expanding the functionality, however, the unique value of faster movement remains unchanged.
The main goals of MVP development are:
- Testing product hypotheses at the lowest cost.
- Faster acquisition of valuable information required to create a solution.
- Saving development time.
- Promptly delivering an innovative product that solves at least one problem to early user base.
MVP Version VS Full Version
MVP is opposed to an approach in which a “perfect” product has been developed and perfected for a long time according to the author’s own ideas.
The launch of such a product on the market, as a rule, is constantly delayed, because the author believes that “he is not good enough yet.” And in the end, when after months, or even years of development, the product finally appears to potential users, it may turn out that they do not need it. Either the key idea of the product is a failure, or the implementation failed.
MVP Benefits for Businesses
Here are some of the best benefits of using an MVP:
Minimum budget and maximum speed
The cost of developing an MVP is significantly less than the classical one and the whole process takes from 6 to 12 months.
Feedback
Due to feedback, MVP is often determined by a process of regular changes. It allows you to understand what the target audience likes or dislikes, how the client perceives it, and what it generally represents on the market.
At this point, the best solution is the “cupcake” method and how it works. First, you offer customers to try the cake, so that they appreciate the dough, toppings, cream, and get feedback. If they like everything, you start making a wedding cake.
Implementation of the idea
This is a huge advantage that startups get. Instead of implementing the entire set of functions, it is worth selecting from three to five main ones that will be present in MVP. This is convenient: more budget-friendly does not require lengthy marketing research and embodies the plan.
It is worth remembering that one idea comes simultaneously to four people all over the world. Worse than failure can only be the successful implementation of your idea by someone else.
Meet your future investors
When a project is young, just entering the market, with a cool idea that underlies it, offers may come from investors. This is great for several reasons:
- Often investors act as the guarantor of further product development;
- The opportunity to gain experience in competent product management;
- You can already open pre-sales and start reimbursing the project budget.
Primary 4 Types of Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
Among the many approaches to creating the Minimum Viable Product, four main approaches are distinguished:
1. Product with a single parameter
The most common option for creating MVP, for example, creating WhatsApp. This is an application or program that performs one or two functions that are necessary to test the viability of your idea. If the basic functionality of the application is uninteresting to users, then it makes no sense to continue investing in the development of forces, time, and resources.
2. Scattered MVP
This approach is used if the idea of a product can be realized without developing unique software solutions, using a set of ready-made software.
The combination of various tools in a single complex and, especially, the development of original software makes testing a business idea labor-intensive and expensive. Sometimes it’s worth moving on to these stages of development after receiving feedback from users.
So the Groupon service started. At the start, it was only a primitive site based on open source code. Groupon provided all services by email. Social functions, a full email distribution, automation, a mobile application – all this was developed later when it became clear that collective purchases are in demand.
3. The Wizard of Oz MVP
Just as the Wizard of Oz used tricks to pretend to be a giant green head, fairy, fireball or monster, this type of MVP only seems to be fully functional. In reality, the startup does all the work manually, instead of using the software. There is no basic software at all, but there is a product concept that needs to be verified.
Nick Swinmurn, the founder of Zappos, has proven that this strategy works. At the very beginning, he did not spend a dollar on the purchase of shoes and the rental of a warehouse. He posted photos of shoes on the site. As soon as buyers started ordering shoes, he went to the store, bought the right pair, and sent it. Realizing that the project is viable, he updated the functionality of the site.
4. Concierge MVP
Entrepreneurs who choose the MVP Concierge also provide hands-on services. But in this case, the client knows that the real person is behind the service provided. Wealthfront, financial planning, and investment service started with concierge MVP. Wealthfront employees spoke directly with customers who needed help managing money.
An important difference between the concierge MVP and the Wizard of Oz type is that it aims to generate ideas about the future of the product, provide services, and communicate with the client.
Step-by-step guide on how to build a Minimum Viable Product
To launch a minimally viable product, you need to go through eight preparatory steps. The first four steps are aimed at the preliminary refinement of a business idea. The fifth and sixth stages relate to product design, and only at the seventh and eighth points will it go directly to development and testing.
Step 1: Formulate the Problem
Each product is created to solve a certain problem, and it’s not about making a profit. This requires a customer-oriented approach. Why does the user need a product?
Having clearly formulated the answer, you will get an idea about the task of the product and its value to the user. So, opening service for short-term rental of parking spaces, you solve the problem that all drivers face, making it easier to find a place where you can leave your car.
Step 2: Identify the audience and narrow it down
Focusing on the needs of a wide audience when designing MVP is an erroneous strategy. The narrowing of the target audience allows you to more accurately orient the future product. To do this, it is necessary to formulate a portrait of the “ideal” user, a person who without hesitation will buy your solution and will be satisfied with its capabilities.
Typically, this portrait includes information about the user’s age, level of education, income, habits, interests, and hobbies. These details are necessary to understand how well the product is suitable for the future user and will help later, at the stage of advertising and promotion.
Step 3: Explore competitors
Even if you come up with something truly new, there are companies that are already operating in the selected industry. Their experience, advantages, and disadvantages should be carefully studied. Find out what their market share is, why customers come to them, and what makes them unique. These details will help adjust the MVP.
Step 4: Perform a SWOT analysis
This method of strategic planning has been used by large companies to make management decisions and formulate business policies since 1963. And although it is usually used on a much larger scale, SWOT analysis is well suited to identify strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for a minimally viable product.
Step 5: Map the paths
After a fundamental analysis of a business idea, it’s time to look at the future product from the user’s point of view. A path map is a procedure that a user performs in order to achieve his goal, for example, to purchase goods or to find and rent a parking space.
This path should not only be as short as possible, but also simple and convenient. Having considered how the user interacts with the future application, you will understand at what stage to provide additional information, where to add a hint, and how to optimally design the interface.
Step 6: Highlight main functions for implementation & calculate volume of MVP
No matter how large-scale the project is, for MVP it is necessary to list and prioritize its functions. When creating a Minimum Viable Product, preference is given to those that are directly related to the main goal of the future product.
The introduction of additional features in the prototype will only confuse users and reduce the reliability of the results of the study of a business idea. They can be added after deploying MVP, collecting, and analyzing primary feedback.
Step 7: Choose an appropriate methodology and develop MVP
Having determined the scope, order, and direction of work, we can begin to develop a minimum viable product.
The result depends on how the development process will be built. For MVP, it is crucial to use one of the iterative development approaches. Lean, Scrum, Kanban, extreme programming – all of them allow you to establish a regular release of updates, improve the product on the go, as feedback is received. The choice of a specific methodology depends on the preferences of the development team and the characteristics of a particular project.
Step 8: Test the product
A minimum viable product requires regular testing throughout development. Alpha testing is carried out internally by the testers, but beta testing will require the help of outsiders. Well, if it will be people from among future users.
Those wishing to participate in the test can be found on sites such as BetaList, ProductHunt, Reddit, Quora, or through their own communication channels: social networks, blogs, and email newsletters.
The main objective of testing will be the technical improvement of MVP. Before release, the product should work without errors, so that technical problems do not prevent users from evaluating its functionality.
Minimally Viable Product Launch
For the project team, work has just begun. From the moment of launch, it is necessary to collect, save, and analyze feedback, starting with statistics and ending with data on user behavior and feedback. This information is what it was all about.
The data collected using MVP will help to understand whether the project has prospects, help generate new ideas, and develop a product development strategy based on facts and not assumptions. Thus, MVP testing will fully justify itself.
Major Minimum Viable Product Examples
At the end of this post, we consider a few successful minimally viable products.
Airbnb
In 2007, San Francisco residents Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia wanted to start a business, but they didn’t even have the means to pay for housing. A design conference was to come to the city, so the guys decided to rent out the top floor of their home for a small amount to conference visitors who did not have enough rooms in hotels.
They took photos of the apartment and placed them on a simple website – soon they had 3 clients who paid for the accommodation during the conference.
The MVP concierge and communication with the guests further allowed Brian and Joe to validate the hypotheses regarding the target market, determine the target audience, and even confirm the viability of the idea. This was the time they realized that not only students were willing to pay for living in a strange house.
As a result, 2 residents of San Francisco founded Airbnb – a platform for hosting, searching, and short-term rental housing.
Buffer
Joel Gascoigne didn’t want to spend time on an unnecessary product, so he started with a simple test – he created a landing page with a subscription form, an offer description and tariff plans when choosing one of which a visitor would be prompted to receive a newsletter and a message that the product is not ready yet.
Due to the subscriber base, Joel established communication with the target market and found out his needs, and the page with tariff plans made it possible to determine the share of traffic ready for conversion.
After iTunes ousted their decision from the market, the Odeo platform team began to mull over a new product – one of the ideas was a microblogging platform, code-named “twttr”.
The first prototype of this platform was used as an internal service for Odeo employees who actively used it. This prompted the development team to make the platform public, but the Twitter user base began to grow rapidly only after its presentation at the SXSW conference in 2007.
Another example of MVP is the WhatsApp messenger, which at the time of publication in 2009 did not have functions for sending messages.
The creators of WhatsApp, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, proceeded from a simple idea – to create a mobile phone book that would show contact status: available, busy, at the meeting, driving, in the gym, and so on. When users indicated their status, their contacts received a pop-up notification.
Soon, Coom and Acton noticed that users began to use statuses for communication. Grasping on this idea, they released a new version of WhatsApp, which had more features related to sending messages. As a result, a small user base in a matter of days has grown to 250,000 people, proving that developers are on the right track.
Zynga
A social gaming development studio that earned more than $ 1,000,000,000 in in-app purchases in 2013. As part of the development process, the company uses landing pages and campaigns in AdWords to determine the degree of interest in the game or its specific aspect.
By turning off ads in online and current games, Zynga receives valuable data that allows you to create a development plan and avoid investing in uninteresting game audiences.
Pebble
A manufacturer of electronic paper watches, to which the market for “smart accessories” owes its popularity.
When investor money ran out, Pebble founder Eric Migicovksky launched a Kickstarter campaign, which ultimately became the most successful crowdfunding history – consumers interested in the product invested $ 10,000,000 in it.
As the MVP, a prototype demonstration video was used, in which a request for investment was heard. The required amount ($ 100,000) was collected within two hours, and by the end of the week the project account had $ 600,000. At the end of the investment round, more than 60,000 invested $ 10,200,000 in Migikovsky’s project.
As of March 20, 2014, more than 400,000 units of Pebble products were sold.
Final Thoughts
A minimum viable product (MVP) plays the role of an airbag – it makes it possible to predict the commercial and technical potential of the product, as well as its implementation. MVP also allows you to make technical and business decisions based on facts, not assumptions.
Therefore, testing a concept or product on the market is the main goal of creating an MVP. You can always request in Sannaсode and we will help you create an MVP for your startup.