How to Plan a Minimum Viable Product: A Step-By-Step Guide

Before we begin explaining the steps to plan a minimum viable product, let us shoot you with some staggering numbers. According to Forbes magazine, 90% of the startups fail and It is pretty concerning if you're planning to build a legacy of your own.The reason for this fallout points to a number of reasons from poor business model, lack of proper market research and so on. Nobody wants to be in this domino of 90% failing businesses. So, what and how should you approach your visionary idea and cement yourself on the other 10%?

That's precisely what we are going to explain! Planning a viable MVP can help you see the full potential of your product and ways to improve further before even finishing your product. By the end of this article, you would've known,

• The Benefits of Planning a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
• The Steps to Plan your MVP
• Real life examples of MVP and,
• Whether you actually need an MVP.

To put it in plain and simple words, MVP is more like a teaser or a quick look at your product's outcome. No matter how hard you try to anticipate your customer's feedback by pouring in hours of consumer behavior research, you might always leave something behind that needs to be taken care of. A viable MVP is a basic version of your product with just enough features to grab attention and get feedback from your target audience.

A quick example would be a company releasing MVP for their product. That MVP would include only the core vitals/primary features of the product. If you're building an MVP for software that focuses on delivery management, the MVP would include only the essentials – GPS and a map to track the delivery agent, the delivery location and a dashboard. By going for MVP like this, you as well as the end users would easily get an idea of how your product works and how it can be improved further. By getting their valuable feedback you can then focus on building a more powerful and feature rich product for your end users.

Furthermore, with a well-planned Minimum Viable Product at your disposal, you can,

• Attract early investors and seed funding to fund your entire end product.
• Try out your idea with actual users before investing a big budget into fully developing the product.
• Figure out what works with your target market and what doesn't.
• Figure out what works and what needs fixing, thanks to your early users' feedback.

Okay, let's get real here. How to plan a minimum viable product? Well, It's not rocket science. But, it's no walk in the park either. Let us break down the simple steps to plan your MVP.

Define Your Problem

Let's start with the basics i.e., your idea. What problem does your product solve? Define it very clearly. Then identify the key features that your product needs to solve the exact problems. In this step, to define your goal or the problem clearly, it is crucial to understand your audience and their pain points.

Market Research

It wouldn't matter much in the end if your product solves a bigger problem but it has no demand. Conduct a through market research to understand your audience much better. Have a look at the competitors, trends and customer feedbacks of similar products. This step will ensure that your MVP is indeed crafted with the market in mind.

Create a Prototype

To create a prototype that speaks to your audience you should first identify the essential features that directly address the identified problem. Prioritize the features that you'd want to use and incorporate the same in the prototype. It doesn't have to be perfect; you can focus on the design and the overall flow of the functionalities that you would like to see in your minimum viable product.

Test the Prototype

To test the prototype, gather a focus group or a small member of the group. Collect their feedback on user experience and the functionalities that you have targeted. These feedbacks would be valuable when it comes to developing your MVP and the actual development of your product.

Develop the Minimum Viable Product

Based on your research and the user feedback from the prototype, you start developing your minimum viable product. It's important to keep the MVP lean and focusing on the core functionalities of your product is more than enough. The goal here is functionality and not perfection. In simple, build a product that solves the problem of your target audience.

Launch Your MVP

Once your MVP is ready, launch it to a limited number of users or to your specific segment of audience. The latter is more ideal. Post launch, gather feedback from the group and focus much more on – what to fix and what to improve. By doing these, you will be simply be able to build a product which is more focused towards solving the problems for the end users.

Amazon

Amazon is one of the most popular examples of successful MVPs. It is a known fact that the e-commerce giant has started as an online bookstore. Jeff Bezos bought books from distributors and started selling to individual customers online. He initially started his website straightforwardly without any design or any other functionalities apart from customers placing orders. Thanks to that MVP, Amazon is now the biggest e-commerce platform, earning revenues of more than $500 million worldwide in 2022.

Spotify

In the 2000s people often used pirate sites to download and listen to music. There weren't many options for listening to music on the computer. Spotify co-founders Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon saw to that and came up with an MVP for music listening with ads playing here and there. Initially, they tested the application by introducing the same to their family and friends. We all know how well Spotify is turned up now! Spotify now has over 422 million users, serving rhythm across the ocean.

Uber

In 2009, Uber was launched as an MVP called “Uber Cab". At that time, the MVP was launched only in San Fransico and catered only for iPhone users in the same region. The goal was to find out whether people would like to book cabs through SMS directly. Once the results were positive, Uber started growing its application by integrating GPS, real-time driver tracking and adding more locations. Now, Uber stands tall amongst its competitors by making their service accessible to more than 10,000 cities across 71 countries worldwide.

MVP can indeed help you see things that you might overlook when you are making major business decisions. The scale of your business doesn't really have a play when it comes to planning an MVP. Still confused? Have a look at our three checkboxes and if you ticked more than a couple, we'd suggest you go for planning an MVP for your product.

Complexity ✓

Ask yourself this question – How complex is your product idea? How complex of a problem that you're trying to solve? If it's a brain buster that needs decoding and feedback are of utmost importance, then opting for a minimum viable product is a must for you.

Resource ✓

If you don't go for MVP, can you afford to build the end product without relying on investors for funding? If it's a no, going for MVP would help you gather enough resources to build your product, given your idea and the problem you're trying to solve is a vital ones for the end users.

User Centrality ✓

Is the data you have and is found on the internet enough or do you need to gather more real-life user feedback? If it's a yes, close your eyes and plan a minimum viable product. MVP will help you to gather useful insights for the end product that you're trying to build.

If you tick these boxes and you're looking to enter into the realm of mobile apps, you have to look no further. As a reliable Mobile App Development Company, we'll guide and help you plan an MVP for you!

It is no doubt that planning a minimum viable product can benefit your business in a number of ways from funding to gathering insightful data to build your end product. Take some time and analyze the problem you're trying to solve and you will know why you have to rely on a minimum viable product.

So, does planning an MVP for you always result in a greener color? We would say NO. Rushing into MVP without a proper roadmap would result in unforeseen obstacles. But, hey, thankfully you're here and read our detailed blog on how to plan a minimum viable product to come up with a comprehensive roadmap for your MVP.

If you still have any doubts or need professional help with guidance or development of your MVP, you don't have to think twice! You can always give us a call and book a free discovery call to let us pave a successful path for you.