A minimum viable product (MVP) is a demo of your app or website with a core set of functionality operating within the market.
MVP is the first step to verify the funnel of getting customers, gather information, set the course for a further website or app development, and get insights into what works and what does not. Therefore, by getting feedback from the users, your web or mobile app development team can improve on that by adding more features to increase sales, and evaluate your business goals.
Instagram, Facebook, Dropbox, Snapchat, Spotify — they all started as MVP.
Steve Blank, the founder of the Lean Startup movement, author of Four Steps to the Epiphany, and The Startup Owner's Manual, points out that successful projects often fail because of a lack of their customers' knowledge. When startups develop an MVP product, instead of thinking of end-users' needs they focus on the idea that has not been tested on real users.
When you have a business goal and need a set of features, your further decisions will not be based on speculation and presumptions, but on real analytics and on the feedback from the users.
How MVP Development is Different From Prototyping
Although the concept of Prototype and MVP may seem similar, there is a huge difference between them. It all narrows down to your purposes, priorities, budget, type of project, testing techniques, etc.
Let's just put it simply, a prototype is a drawing that you can show to someone. You can show your product to potential investors or customers. Though customers will not pay for something they cannot use or test.
However, an MVP is a ready-to-go product to run your business. This product has to be able to complete the primary function of your company. Let's take Instagram, for instance. They implemented photo sharing with a limited number of filters as an MVP. In just 2 months of feature adding they have managed to get 1 million users. Thus, an MVP turned into a fully-fledged social platform.
Things To Consider
Think about your primary goals:
- If your market segment is highly competitive, do not hesitate — the sooner you release MVP, the more chances you will have to fit in.
- Deadlines are paramount. In complex projects companies sometimes postpone the release to correct bugs and errors. Otherwise, there is a risk of scaring users once and for all.
- Start testing as soon as possible. There is no need to polish all the elements of the interface. Make your product as simple as possible and test it right away. After testing, make corrections and test again, and so on and so forth.
Find out about the app development stage prior to MVP, the main prototyping types, and how those are different in the previously published story at https://topdevs.org/blog/prototyping-vs-mvp-development