What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?

• What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?
• Why Is It Important to Have a Minimum Viable Product?
• Benefits of MVP
  • Quicker Release
  • Clear User Interface
  • More Economical
  • Speed the Team Learning
  • Test Market Demands
• Examples Of Minimum Viable Product
  • Foursquare
  • Facebook
  • Dropbox
  • Zappos
  • Amazon

What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?

Don’t have an idea that what is minimum viable product?

No worries, here I’ll be defining MVP in detail, and every marketer should have the knowledge of this golden strategy.

Minimum viable product is a term that was introduced by Frank Robinson but has been popularized by the founder of Lean Startup Methodology, Eric Ries.

MVP minimum viable product is a developmental technique in which a new product or website is introduced in the market with features sufficient enough to get attention of early adopter customers. The final, complete set of features of the product is only designed and released after considering feedback from the product’s initial users.

To define mvp more simply, it is the first form of a product that you can release to users. It provides core functionality without any additional features.

Minimum viable products are not always “products” and can differ in type and complexity. An MVP involves a range of things, from driving traffic to a landing page to live prototypes (often with missing features and bugs).

Why Is It Important to Have a Minimum Viable Product?

The main purpose of MVP is to deliver the bare functionality that will meet the essential needs of the users and solve a specific problem effectively. It is useful to minimize time and effort wasted by testing the product in the real market conditions before building the complete product.

A company’s product team might choose to develop and release a minimum viable product to:

1. Release a product to the market as quickly as possible
2. Test an idea with real users before developing a complete product with a large budget
3. Learn what relates with the company’s target market and what doesn’t

Benefits of MVP

Using an MVP in business to test a business model is probably the most popular startup launch scheme, as it has numerous benefits, including:

Quicker Release

MVP development releases your product faster only in a few months which ultimately increases its chances to succeed in the changing market.

Clear User Interface

Building an MVP helps prevent your initial product from getting cluttered with unwanted features. As a result, the product is easily adopted by new customers and not complicated in usage.

More Economical

One of the most significant benefits of MVP is cost-effective product development. Product Development Process of the initial versions of your product with minimized features is an easy and safe approach in relation to cost. Moreover, you also get to keep a space for some additional upgrades in the future by spending less in the initial phase.

Speed the Team Learning

Putting up the product on the market with a minimum viable product helps the team to learn more about the product and utilize the customer feedback received by the users to improve the upcoming version of the product.

Test Market Demands

MVP helps to test the market demand at the initial phase to ensure its idea success. It helps businesses getting into the real market faster so that you can field-test your ideas and get user responses to the overall product.

Examples Of Minimum Viable Product

Here are some examples of the minimum viable product from the top tech successful companies:

Foursquare

The location-based social network Foursquare began as just a one-feature MVP, offering the users only check-ins and gamification rewards. Once it had a solid user base, it expanded and became a full city guide.

Facebook

The popular social media platform Facebook was initially a basic social media tool developed to connect students of Harvard University by allowing them to post messages to shared boards. The students loved this connecting app and started sharing it with each other, hence the platform expanded and gradually added more advanced features.

Dropbox

Dropbox used a video as a minimum viable product and explained the benefits of storing data in one place. The simple three-minute video was watched by approximately 75,000 people overnight and a bulk of people signed up successfully.

Zappos

The founder of Zappos took photos of shoes he found at stores to test if anyone would be interested to buy a pair without trying it on first. People liked this idea and the platform expanded.

Amazon

The founder of Amazon started out by buying books from distributors and delivering them to customers every time his online store received an order. The high book sales resulted in adding up more products to the store, then owning warehouses, and finally providing each user with a personalized experience on the website.

Once you have the perfect MVP developed, you can jump on to understanding what your customer acquisition cost is and how you can create a perfect sales process for your SaaS startup.