What is a minimum viable product (MVP)?

The MVP, or minimum viable product, is the most basic version of a product that must be developed for sale in the market. The concept of the minimum viable product was initially introduced by Eric Ries, a leading figure in the Lean Startup methodology. He defines the MVP as:

“The version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”

The importance and benefits of implementing MVPs

The concept of an MVP originates from the lean startup methodology, which emphasizes learning and building with scalability in mind. By starting with an MVP, you can take the first small step with minimal risk to your wallet and business, allowing you to test, refine, and grow incrementally. This approach helps uncover the market's interest in your product and provides valuable insights for making improvements, scaling back, or adding extra features to enhance marketability. MVP testing can lead to cost savings, insights into user-centered design, rapid business launches, and early investor buy-in. The early insights and investment can contribute to the development of the ideal product that both you and your customers have been seeking.

Setting up an effective MVP

Your MVP is crucial to your business strategy, as it addresses customer pain points, gathers customer insight, and includes only a few key features. It serves as a testing ground for your business concept, focusing on measuring the cost and impact of these features while proving its value to customers and investors.

MVP requires both ideation and validation, and team collaboration is necessary to complete the following steps successfully:

Identifying customer pain points.

What problem are you trying to solve?

Consider the example of Uber founders Garret Camp and Travis Kalanick in 2008. Imagine you're attending a conference in a large city and find it challenging to hail a cab late at night or during bad weather. You decide to devise a solution that allows users to secure a ride home using their phone. To refine your idea, you engage potential users in conversation, asking about their preferences: Would they appreciate hailing a cab at the touch of a button? Would they feel comfortable texting a taxi driver for a ride home? How would they prefer to handle payment? This approach allows you to conduct market research and gain insights about your potential users and their expectations for your service.

Developing an MVP is required market research step which includes:

Competitive analysis

SWOT analysis

Surveys, 1:1 interviews, and focus groups with target users and customers

Market research and user studies are crucial for gaining a deeper understanding of your customers' needs and pain points. They also play a key role in identifying the essential features that your product must have to provide value, and provide valuable evidence for the proof of concept in the early stages.

Camp and Kalanick created "UberCab", the first version of today's Uber app, from their initial research. The MVP was an SMS-based version that enabled cab hailing with a text. It leads to the next development phase with proved result.

    2. Analyzing the competitors and market demand

In 2006, your cab-hailing service likely had few competitors. However, in 2023, ride-sharing services are plentiful with significant overlap from one app to another. What can make your service distinctive? What needs of customers remain unmet? What is the financial worth of these pain points to the customer? Develop a pros and cons list that displays how your service outperforms the competition.

In 2006, the cab-hailing service likely faced little competition. But by 2023, the market is flooded with ride-sharing services, many of which offer similar features. So, how can you make your service stand out? What unmet needs do customers have? What is the financial value of these pain points for the customer? To answer these questions, develop a pros and cons list to show how your service surpasses its competitors. For each point of pros and cons, showing the proved evidences which you collect at market research is really helpful

    3. Test the MVP for validity

Identify a beta group or internal testers from your team to test the basic technology, such as a landing page, an SMS line (similar to early Uber), or a basic one-page app. Ensure that the testing team adheres to timelines and instruct them to focus on functionality and the ability to address pain points. This process will facilitate ideation and provide valuable insights into areas for product improvement and refinement before launching it to early adopters.

   4. Get ready to launch

After successfully passing the testing stage for your MVP, it's time to conduct research, build, test, fix any issues, launch the product, and continue the ideation process. Once you have finalized the key features identified from the start, you can launch the MVP to your initial customer base and initiate the build-measure-learn (BML) feedback loop.

What are some examples of MVPs?

Stuck in finding MVP idea for your business, take a look at examples of MVPs below!

Uber

Clearly, we could learn the case of Uber above. The founders, Garret Camp and Travis Kalanick, initially created an iPhone-only SMS service called UberCab in San Francisco. They tested and refined the user experience within the city before securing venture capital to develop the app, which now facilitates 19 million trips worldwide each day.

Uber has gone through several iterations, expanding its services based on customer feedback. It started as UberCab with only taxis, then introduced black cars and independent contractors as drivers, shaping the ridesharing experience we know today. Over time, Uber has expanded its services to include pooled rideshare, accessible ride options, and even helicopter services in some smaller markets.

Spotify

In 2006, streaming services faced challenges such as limited and low-quality content libraries, high subscription prices, and unstable streaming. Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon created Spotify to test their streaming technology with beta users, funding it through on-page ad revenue. Their main goal was to ensure fast and stable playback to showcase the product's quality to music labels and investors. After successful market testing, Spotify and its subsequent app were released to the public, establishing its current status as a major player in the streaming industry.

What are beyond MVPs?

Not only stop at the concept of the MVP to help startups success. It has evolved into more advanced solutions, such as the Minimum Lovable Product (MLP) or Minimum Marketable Product (MMP).

The Minimum Lovable Product (MLP) is a customer-focused product designed to be well-received from the beginning by offering essential features for lovability. It prioritizes delivering the highest value to the customer and is favored for its cost-effectiveness, superior solutions, and user-friendly nature.

The Minimum Marketable Product (MMP) is the next stage after your MVP or MLP is ready to be sold to the end user. It is the simplest product that the market will accept before new features are built. With an MMP, you have developed your product and proven its value to the customer through testing. Unlike the MVP, which could be a prototype, the MMP is ready to hit the market for early adopters. For example, Spotify initially developed itself as a landing page for its MVP. Once they were able to develop an app and a subscription service, they launched into the market as the MMP.

Want to start building MVP?

We understands the importance of MVPs for startups. Our experienced team can help you save time and resources by building high-quality MVPs in the form of prototypes or simple websites. We prioritize timely delivery with a focus on concise design so the MVPs could grow into more sophisticated application alongside the growth of your business. Contact us now in here for more details on how we can help you create your very first MVP.