We all have ideas we think would change the world and we think that if we can just build an application and have a big expensive launch, people would flock to it and it would all be amazing. But in real life, we know this isn't the case. For some reason that software, you spent all this money building just never got users and slowly was abandoned. If you haven't experienced this you should probably keep reading cuz this article might save you a lot of money, time and stress.

What is an MVP?

An MVP product is a product with only a basic set of features, released in order to test a new business idea and gauge people’s reactions.

In 2011, The Lean Startup by Eric Ries changed the history of startups by introducing several new concepts like the MVP, A/B testing, Agile principles, and continuous software deployment. The minimum viable product, or MVP, was one of them. The idea of an MVP is to get user feedback before developing the final product. This feedback helps you avoid failure.

A minimum viable product has a bare-bones design. It’s then tested on the market to see if it has the potential to succeed. To perform this initial testing, the product only needs the most essential functionality. Anything beyond major functionality is not included.

The MVP is created to TEST and get user feedback as soon as possible and this feedback helps guide further development updates to the application based on the user request, behaviors, and data.

How does an MVP work?

Developing a final product takes an average of 6 to 8 months with a budget of $200,000. As a result, you get a final product that you put on the market. Then you wait for users’ reactions — they’ll either like it or they won’t. If your product doesn’t appeal to users, the time and money spent on developing it is wasted.

The MVP method allows you to speed up the product’s launch because only essential features are required before you can begin getting real feedback on the concept. MVP design and development usually take 1 to 1.5 months with a budget of $10,000 to $15,000. See the difference?

How most applications are built now

In contrast to the methodology of starting with an MVP, most clients/People tend to want to start from the end. Products are usually complex serval months-long neverending projects that by the time it's completed, one often forgets the reason it was created was to solve the problems of a user and not that of the founders or the team of founders.

The Problem with this approach

1. It's expensive, you often need a full team and serval months of development time before you start getting any user feedback.
2. Its 100% based on opinions and assumptions, alot of features are added based on assumptions of what the founding team or development think would work. ( this is often very wrong )
3. It's not user-focused its idea-focused
4. Extremely Time wasting

Why is a minimum viable product important?

An MVP helps you get early data that confirms users’ interest in your product. Positive results in the MVP phase give the green light to develop the full version.

By creating and testing a minimum viable product, you can:

1. Save time and resources by making sure you’re investing in a project that’s likely to be successful.
2. Check whether the product is appealing to potential users.
3. Find out which trends you can take advantage of when developing the full version of the product.
4. Aсquire a potential user base and find early adopters.
5. Save time and money on developing the final product.
6. Attract investors earlier.

How to break down your idea to an MVP

It's important to learn how to break down your ideas to an MVP so you can quickly begin building and testing with users. The idea of an MVP is similar to the prototyping stage in design thinking. In fact, the process of coming up with an MVP follows a similar system.

So I would break down the steps to building an MVP into these steps

1. Identify your users
2. Break down your idea into jobs the user has to do
3. Pick out only the highest priority jobs
4. Turn those jobs into features to be built
5. Figure out how you can build and test the jobs and features the user needs to perform in as little time and with as little code as possible
6. Test and get user feedback
7. Pivot until you get product-market fit

Great examples of minimum viable products

Foursquare — The company’s MVP contained check-ins and awards in the form of badges. After assessing initial user reactions, the developers started to expand the product, adding recommendations and city guides. Today, Foursquare unites 50 million people who have checked in over 8 billion times.

Instagram — Initially, the MVP was focused on photo filters only. Users could take pictures, apply one of the suggested filters, and save their photos in an album on their device. Users liked the application. It has since been updated to include videos, geolocation, tagging, hashtags, and integration with other social networks.

Amazon — In 1990, Jeff Bezos made a list of products that could be sold online at the time. His very first list included 20 categories. Later, he selected only five: books, CDs, videos, computer hardware, and software. He launched a simple website with a catalog of books. Once a customer ordered a book, Bezos bought it from a distributor and shipped it. Over the years, the website scaled and grew. Today, Amazon offers many more products and is one of the world’s largest retailers.

Facebook — The popular social network started as Thefacebook. The idea for the MVP was to connect students in the same class or college. Thefacebook let users post messages to boards. All other features were added after the success of the MVP.

Airbnb — Living in a loft apartment, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky had a hard time paying their rent. They came up with an idea for providing accommodation to those coming to San Francisco. They launched a simple website, posted a few photos of their place, and got three guests. Today, the startup has $2.6 billion in yearly revenue.

Need help developing an MVP for your idea?

To save yourself time, money, and resources, we highly recommend an MVP.

Being a Unicorn PM, I have developed MVPs for all sorts of projects, websites, and applications. I offer full consultations for minimum viable product development. Are you interested in developing your MVP with me? Do have any questions on how to make an MVP? Send “Hello MVP” to henry@thinksenpai.com