Last updated on August 25th, 2023
To understand what your customer wants, when developing software, you’ll need to test your project – and this is where the process of building an MVP comes in. An MVP Software Development (Minimum Viable Product) is an important step that allows you to preview and test the product to make necessary adjustments before actually releasing the final version with all features.
In this post, you will come across how to build an MVP. Learn the steps and know why this is a very important thing to do when developing software or applications.
What is MVP Software Development?
In simple terms, MVP product definition stands for a limited version of your software product including the minimum features that provide value to customers. They should just be enough to showcase your startup idea and collect end-users feedback.
Depending on it, you can deliberately conclude whether it is worth investing further and developing a full-featured product or taking your time for business idea improvement.
The image below should help you better understand what is an MVP in business.
MVP Software Development and the Core of the Agile Methodology
An MVP is a concept from an agile scrum that refers to a product that has just enough features to satisfy the needs of early customers and, more importantly, give them something to provide feedback on to shape the future of the product.
The real value of an MVP lies in the learning opportunities it provides. Instead of jumping the gun and creating all the features you think users want in a single iteration (a process that’s lengthy and prone to errors), you do it in “sprints” or stages and you learn as you go.
According to the agile/scrum methodology, your MVP should be the first product that satisfies the need.
Next, as you identify the issue that plagues the startup
The advantages of starting with MVPs via the agile approach include:
- Speed to Launch: takes much less time to design and build.
- Flexibility: While you work toward the final product, the client has something to use and test.
- Better Products: As you keep working on your final product, you learn more about your client’s expectations in real-time, so you reduce the chances of building something that no one wants.
MVP Software Development Objective
Do you know that around 90% of startups fail in their first year? 42% of them fail due to lack of demand, and another 17% because the final product isn’t simple enough to use.
The process of building an MVP drives a lot of benefits for companies in the process of software and application development.
Without developing an MVP you might face a larger initial investment in software development and a higher risk when it comes to releasing your product into the market.
MVP serves as a trial round that allows you to see your idea in action and make the necessary adjustments to make it more appealing and valuable to the user. If you launch your app, with a lot of features, it’ll be much harder to adjust in the future.
Also, the cost of building an MVP is much lower than a final version development, due to step-by-step development. Furthermore, when your app starts to bring some profit, you can reinvest it into the development of additional features.
At last, building an MVP can also work to attract investors. With a functioning product, you will have more chances to gather funds and attention from VCs or angel investors.
How To Plan MVP Software Development?
Building an MVP requires efforts not only from developers but also from clients. As a potential client, you should be aware of the steps of developing an MVP and do your homework before asking developers for a free quote.
Step 1. Identify the problem
Your first step toward building a Minimum Viable Product is to identify the problem your project will solve. You need to describe problems your project will solve. It would help if you also described people facing those problems because having a clear idea of your target audience will help you be on the same page with developers.
Step 2. Analyze the market
For developing a successful MVP, you need to know your market. For this task, check whether your idea is truly innovative or similar to already existing products. Gather your competitors and closely look at how they position their company. You can find their company’s Vision, Mission, and Value Proposition on their websites, business profiles on LinkedIn, and product descriptions on App Marketplaces.
Step 3. Product Canvas
Create a Product Canvas, an excellent tool for strategic product planning since it describes the entire product vision on a single page. Product Canvas includes the following elements:
- AME includes the product’s name
- GOAL describes the overarching business goal of the project
- SCALE shows the size of your market
- TARGET GROUP includes the end-users of your app and their needs.
- BIG PICTURE explains the user experience (UX) of your project
- rff4THE NEXT BIG THING shows the objective of the next product iteration and actionable items that will help in reaching the objective
Step 4. Personas
The best way to capture the different types of potential users is by drafting User Personas. Personas, fictional characters who represent your application’s end-users, will help you illustrate your users’ behaviors and goals.
You also can use customers’ demographic data, job title, and company, or even describe their ways of using technology devices.
Step 5. Hiring Developers
Hiring developers with solid expertise increases your chances to release the MVP in time and on budget. The niche team’s expertise in creating on-demand services, healthcare apps, custom ERPs, and other industry-specific solutions ensures more precise cost estimations and less time for feature implementation, thus saving your time and money. To learn more about hiring developers and validating their experience.
Step 6. User Journey Map
Developers will prepare a User Journey Map that displays how users will move through the application. A User Journey Map visualizes the user flow step by step. Designers use it as the foundation for creating wireframes and clickable prototypes of applications. Such a map gives you and the team to be creative and experiment with different user pathways.
Step 7. Prioritize Minimum Viable Product features
Business analysts, project managers, and developers decide which features are the most important for your minimum viable product (MVP). The two main points of reference in choosing the core features are:
- The problem your app solves
- Your application’s general goal
It’s not easy to depart from your vision for the product. But your MVP features need to originate from the problem your app aims to solve, not from your vision.
Step 8. Prototype
A prototype is the first visual presentation of your final product that has an immense impact on the entire app development process. It shows your product’s basic structure, interface layout, and sketches of your app screens. We do not recommend skipping project prototyping. Otherwise, you’ll face a lot of confusion during the development phase.
Step 9. Minimum Viable Product Development
During MVP Software development, the development team will send you reports with hours of team stent to implement one or another function. If your developers use the agile approach, they will run product demo sessions to show how implemented functionality works in the development environment.
Are You Looking For MVP Software Development Company?
The Bottom Line
Making a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) has proven itself time and time again to be a beneficial step in the software development process. The path to developing an MVP that functions beautifully is never an easy one. To transform your ideas into a bigger reality and get it to the target audiences’ notice, you need to carefully formulate a business hypothesis, identify all the main functions, and then pick an efficient MVP software development company to go on with your project. You should also take note of the estimated MVP cost.
It helps businesses test the waters before going all-in and investing in ideas that may not prove viable or need an alteration in order to meet market needs. MVP creates a foundation for information-driven business decisions and can also be used to attract investors.
