What is an MVP?
In the tech world, MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. That is the smallest scope or collection of features that allows your product to solve the problem it was designed to address. No more, no less.
The acronym MVP can be misleading as it brings to mind the traditional thought of an MVP, Most Valuable Player. In the sports version, this is the star or the player who did it all. In the tech world, that’s the opposite of what we want. A Minimum Viable Product is the least valuable player- good enough to make the team and start collecting those NBA paychecks, but plenty of room to grow into a star.
The main objective of an MVP is to have enough features to attract customers, but small enough to build and release quickly. This is all about speed to market to gather feedback from active users to guide further development.
Characteristics of a successful MVP
Just the essentials
This is where the ‘Minimum’ comes in. It should include only those critical features that solve the core problem of a targeted audience. Critical is defined as without it, the core problem is not addressed.
Simple
In product development, complex = expensive. An MVP should be simple and it should be cost effective. The goal is to learn quickly and inexpensively.
Iterative
It should be a stepping stone towards a grander vision or product roadmap. The aim is to build onto your MVP in small incremental chunks based on user feedback to get towards the North Star Vision.
Steps to a successful MVP
Understand—Market Analysis
It can be easy to get carried away with a good idea and not spend the time doing due diligence before diving into a solution. If an MVP is all about learning and iterating quickly and inexpensively, what better way to do that than with research before a single dollar is spent?
In this step it’s vital to understand if the problem you’re trying to solve is actually a problem people are facing and willing to pay to solve. Research the size of the market, the competitive landscape, and what are the characteristics of the ideal customer.
Strategize—Product Scope
The product scope is going to act as the guardrails for your path to an MVP solution. Think of it like the bumpers placed in the gutters of a bowling lane. When prioritizing features, assessing them against the product scope will let you know if you’re staying in the lane or need to redirect efforts.
Two simple questions when defining scope- “what value is this adding to the user?” and, “Is it a necessity to solve the problem being addressed?”
Ideate and Build—UX/UI Design
This is all about creating a usable, intuitive product. To attract and retain customers a product needs to provide a good experience. It should be easy to navigate and understand.
UX/UI design is vital during the MVP phase. The product won’t have all the bells and whistles of the north star vision, so it’s crucial to nail the look and feel of the features being delivered.
Don’t skimp when it comes to UX/UI design. This is what your customers will see and interact with. It is their connection to a product and brand. People don’t use products they don’t enjoy.
Build and Ship—Product Launch
Launching an MVP is not unlike a full-fledged product launch. You need people using your product to gather valuable feedback, so a scaled back go-to-market plan is needed. Again, the name of the game here is less is more. Limit spending and keep the marketing efforts targeted. This step will also provide great insights you can incorporate into the full-scale launch of your product when ready.
Evolve—Learn and Iterate
The ability to learn quickly and refine your product is the main objective of an MVP. Set clear parameters and checkpoints for when and how to collect feedback.
A path to MVP is a lot like the scientific method we all learned in elementary school: form a hypothesis, test, analyze the results, rinse and repeat.
How an MVP can go wrong
Not Defining a North Star Vision
A north star vision is the compass of product development. This is where you want to get to, the grand vision for what the product will become. It becomes the framework that key decisions are measured against. Without spending time at the beginning to define where you want to go, it’s easy to veer wildly off course and end up in the middle of the desert. This is especially true when user feedback starts to roll in.
Scope is too broad
A common misstep in the early stages of product development is choosing too broad of a scope for an MVP. It requires a lot of discipline to narrow the focus especially early in a project when ideas and enthusiasm are flowing freely. The broader the scope, the longer and more costly it will be to get to MVP. An MVP doesn’t need to do everything for everyone. Remember, it’s about iterative learning with real end users.
Keep it simple. What is the specific problem you’re solving for a target audience and what are the specific requirements that need to be met to consider the problem solved.
Not Building a Prototype First
A prototype is not the end product. Prototype and MVP are frequently confused for one another. If an MVP is a house then a prototype is the popsicle-stick model of the house. A prototype is more about getting the general look and feel of a product into the real world rather than creating a working solution. It should be a stripped back version of the MVP. The intent of a prototype is to learn and make design changes before developers start writing code. Development time is costly, so you want to put their efforts towards the right work.
Focusing on the wrong feedback
Feedback is a gift, as the saying goes. All feedback is not created equal though. Some feedback is the pack of socks when you were hoping a new toy was inside the package.
Gathering and distilling feedback into an actionable form is one of the hardest parts of product development. There are so many factors at play it can be dizzying to make heads or tails of it. It’s challenging to get useful feedback from live people. It’s a true art to asking the right questions and pulling the nuggets of feedback between what’s explicitly said. Whenever possible, enlisting the support of a UX Designer is a surefire way to gather better, actionable feedback.
Using the right combination of qualitative feedback (people) and quantitative feedback (numbers) helps narrow in on the right problems to solve. Think of this as “listen and verify”. Users are great at calling out pain points. They’re not going to come right out and give you the answer though. Once you know where to look, quantitative data can help you understand what’s causing the pain point.