Top 5 Essential Points to Consider Before Building an MVP

A Minimum Viable Product or MVP is the most simplest version of a full-fledged product. With just 2-3 core features, an MVP is the first stepping stone to a startup’s success. Today’s most loved websites and apps like Facebook, Airbnb, Spotify, Uber and many more, started out as MVPs.

This blog post sheds light on the key points that need to be taken into consideration before embarking on MVP development.

1. Define Your Idea

Firstly, clearly express your product idea. Ask yourself these questions – 

1) Who is my target audience? and 

2) How will they benefit from my product?

Understand the problem(s) that the product aims to solve by specifically identifying the pain points of your target users. Brainstorm for the possible solutions and analyze if they are feasible. In this way, you will have finally perceived your product vision.

2. Conduct Market Research

Next, do a thorough market research about your target customers and possible competitors. Know your potential user base – their challenges, specific preferences related to geography, seasons, festivals, etc., the devices and digital channels they use, and so on.

Also, conduct a competitor analysis to better understand your potential rivals with respect to their key strengths, marketing strategies, technologies used, customer reviews, etc. 

3. Create the User Flow 

Keeping user’s needs and the product’s primary goal in mind, design a user flow process and define each stage from a user’s perspective. Think about how an end-user will accomplish each task while interacting with the product.

This step-by-step analysis of the user flow process will help you get an idea about the possible user experience and accordingly, you can rectify short-comings that may hamper product usability.

4. Decide the Core Features

Now comes the essence of developing an MVP – deciding the basic features that will make the product viable. Based on the user flow, make a list of the features that are vital to realizing the product concept and prioritize them.

Most importantly, identify the core value element that your product intends to offer customers; like a news feed, classified ads, product and service listings, etc.

5. Finalize the Cost

Last but not the least, estimate the overall budget required for the MVP development. It costs less to develop an MVP; however, you must anticipate the expenses for marketing, hosting, maintenance and support.

Remember, you are not launching a full-featured product and hence, balance your budget appropriately for achieving optimal results and avoiding cost overruns.

Conclusion

MVP development is an iterative process; you build, test, run, and based on user feedback, you improve the product by adding more features. So, start small and achieve big by leveraging the services of a top product development company.