Category: Product Development

How to build an MVP that validates your startup idea? What is the process of MVP development? And, how can it help you make a splash in your industry with less time and costs?

If you’re searching for answers to the questions above, you landed on the right page!

Table of content:

• What is an MVP?
• Benefits of building an MVP
• How to build an MVP in 3 easy steps

1. Identify Your MVP’s Core Features
2. User Testing
3. Release and Keep Iterating

It may look like apps like Airbnb and Uber have rushed into our lives at full tilt and immediately gained global recognition with millions of users. However, only a few people would remember that these apps didn’t start as polished as they are today. The businesses that they have grown out to be today,  it’s almost difficult to imagine that once they were undeveloped apps too. And it is even more difficult to imagine how succeeded exactly due to gradual growth.

If you’ve read about Eric Ries’  ‘Lean Startup’ methodology, you must know how widely it is used all over the world. It is aimed towards shortening the development cycle and building startups according to the needs of the early customers in the international to reduce risks and outlays.

In today’s IT industry, developing an MVP is a basic practice. It is considered to be useful in the planning and building of a product. So if you’re planning to launch your own product, here’s how to build an MVP to quickly test and validate your idea!

What is an MVP?

Before we list down the benefits of an MVP and how you can build one for your startup, let’s first understand what exactly it is.

A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is an initial product with a minimum set of features that solves a definite problem of the users. The basic set of features are enough to attract early-adopter customers and validate your value proposition.

Eric Reis, the person who introduced the concept, says:

A startup may decide to develop and release an MVP because they want to:

• Introduce the product as quickly as possible;
• Test if their target market is actually ready to adopt the product or not;
• Learn about their target market through feedback.

Also Read: From Idea to Product: A comprehensive guide to the product design process

Benefits of Building an MVP

In today’s competitive business landscape, an MVP can help you provide immediate value to your customers while also minimizing development costs. By gathering data and feedback, businesses can then improve future iterations of the product.

Below are 5 major reasons how building an MVP can benefit you:

• User-Focused Design Approach

An MVP is developed to solve a user’s key problem and is constantly iterated as per the user’s needs. It gathers valuable feedback constantly to provide an improved version of the product at each iteration.

• Immediate Testing

By offering the core set of features rather than a fully developed product, organizations can easily establish if their product’s concept resonates with their target audience or not. Based on the findings, it further provides an opportunity to make changes. An MVP also helps businesses identify which social group, in their target audience, are the most active users and how they interact with the product.

• Developing Early Relationship With Customers

The immediate goal of a business is to build trust with their existing customers while also connecting with the new ones. It’s no secret that timing plays an important role in developing that relationship. An MVP helps in engaging early adopters and stakeholders during the initial stage of the development process. These early users will then spread the word about your product and also give valuable feedback. All this nurtures the relationship between a business and its customers.

• Protects Credibility

An MVP is the true image of your product shown to the public. You build an MVP to explore the market and your target audience before making the actual commitment to investing a fortune into it. So even if it fails, it will fail quickly – without you spending too much money. This is a better business idea than pouring in a big amount of your budget into a project that fails within a year – and trust us, you won’t like that.

How to build an MVP in 3 easy steps:

1. Identify Your MVP’s Core Features

The first step to MVP development is finding out what features you want to include in your early product? These are the core features that are going to be the identity of your product. This is how you’re going to make a mark in the market. Start off by answering the following questions:

• What are the problems of your users that you’re trying to solve with your product?
• How are they dealing with the existing problem today?
• How does your feature help them tackle the problem in an easier way?
• Which of your product’s features are ‘needed’ and which of them are ‘wanted’?

There is a big difference between a product needing the feature and wanting it. Features that are ‘needed’ are the ones a product cannot exist without. For example, Uber’s location tracking feature. Without it, a user won’t be able to provide their exact location to be picked up, hence the app will be of no use.

On the other hand, features that are ‘wanted’ are unique and are able to convince users to try out your product. A user able to change their location or able or see the contact details and past history of a driver who is picking them up are useful features that can help your MVP stand out from others in the market. If you’re unsure about if a feature will be used or how often it is going to be used, it is likely to be a want and not a need.

In order to make a great MVP, you do not only cover all the needs but also a good number of wants to validate your product idea. It highly depends on your business and your product to identify what is the right amount of features they want to target.

2. User Testing

Now that you have your MVP’s core features listed, it’s time to identify and find out if they are worth to be included in your final product. How do you find out if the user really ‘wants’ or ‘needs’ that feature? How do you know which features are worth investing in or which are not? That is why we recommend user testing using as many mediums as you can. While doing user testing, don’t forget to include the core features you want to test. Don’t fully invest in these features yet, Instead, create a dummy project and see how many users are interested in it.

This is how Dropbox’s founders got the answer to the simple question – “Will anybody use this?”

3. Release and Keep Iterating

The whole idea behind an MVP is to release early and keep adapting to users’ feedback. As soon as you release your MVP, keep iterating by including features as per users’ needs. You’re likely to iterate for quite some time before it is fully ready to go to the market.  Find those crucial features that are tested, validated, and loved by your target audience and make them the main focus of your product. You may need a couple of MVP’s combined before you release your final product in the market. The moment at which you’re ready to launch the final product is called the Minimum Marketable Product (MMP).

In essence, an MVP aims to allow a business to quickly release its product out in the market with just the essential features and minimal investment. As you constantly iterate and build multiple MVPs to create an MMP, you’ll be able to build a product that is validated and thoroughly tested.

To Conclude

A good MVP is like a pilot that doesn’t sacrifice the overall vision of a product. Stripping down a product to its core features allows you to see how your audience will perceive it in the market. An MVP allows you to develop flexible business models according to customers’ needs.

This easy step-by-step guide on how to build an MVP will help you maximize your project’s value in front of your customers. All you need to do is plan out your core features and understand your target audience.

Need any help in building an MVP for your next project? Reach out to us here.

Designing a product is just not as easy, and it will never be. While companies may come up with unique ideas for their new product, it’s hard to figure out if the final product will be profitable for them or not. Besides, there are various other challenges business stakeholders face like, figuring out their target audience, the business goals to satisfy, and which branding messages to convey through the product. This is even harder during the early stages of the product design process, as business strategies tend to evolve which disturbs the entire product development life cycle. This makes product designing a complex process that needs to start with the right plan and objective to make something that succeeds.

Table of content:

1. Brainstorming Ideas
2. Idea Screening
3. Feasibility Study
4. Prototyping and Testing
5. Product Launch & Iterating

Know that the process of new product design has many steps and iterations from beginning to end. To better understand it, here is a step-by-step guide to the product design process:

1. Brainstorming Ideas

Any product design process starts with brainstorming ideas for the product. This begins with first understanding the customer and what they are looking for. Based on this, companies pinpoint a variety of possible solutions and ideas that can answer those needs. There are a number of sources that can help you generate ideas for your new product. Some companies choose to have internal brainstorming sessions where they assemble their team and get ideas on the floor. Some take advantage of outside sources such as consumer trends, web forums, market environment, crowdsourcing platforms, etc.

Idea generation can begin with a hyper-local situation and can even branch out to a global one, but it needs to start by identifying a bonafide customer need. Make sure your final idea have relevant answers to questions like:

• Who is your customer?
• What are their needs that your product can satisfy?
• What business goals you have to satisfy through the product?

2. Idea Screening

Now that you have a list of potential new product ideas ready, it’s time to vet every one of them. Decide which ideas to pursue and which ones you can discard. This is an important step as it will help you avoid unnecessary expenses to move forward with the design process. Assemble or send out surveys seeking feedback from your team to review and evaluate the ideas. What are the ideas that meet the company’s needs? Will they be able to fill the existing gap between the customer’s problem and the solution? What will be the potential impact on the profits? Answering these questions will allow you to avoid any extra cost on unnecessary complex ideas.

The criteria for identifying the right ideas are different depending on the project and the industry. Often, ideas are screened through focus groups and user studies. They are then ranked in order of desirability and creativity. Alternatively, a more formal discussion about each idea is performed examining the pros & cons and other important details that are enough to decide whether the idea should be considered or not.

3. Feasibility Study

Once you have refined ideas that are more suitable for further considerations, it’s time to take the market analysis followed by the economic, technical, and strategic analysis into account. A feasibility study is a process that takes all these relevant factors and discerns the pros and cons of the product before investing in it.

Market analysis will help you look at the bigger picture of the product market that will assess whether or not there is enough demand and if the idea should be considered. If there is adequate demand for the product, an economic analysis is performed which allocates the cost of production and development and compares them against an expected sales volume. Product profitability and return on investment are also included in this analysis.

Once it’s done, comprehensive technical and strategic analyses take place. They are concerned primarily with the viability of the product including technology, manufacturing process, and availability of product materials. Products that pass the feasibility study are ready to move to the next step in the design process.

4. Prototyping and Testing

It’s time to test your product concept by moving into the design and production stage. To test your product design, you will create an actual prototype or a mockup. Run a small-scale release with a set of target customers and generate feedback. This will help you evaluate and identify the areas of improvement to further develop your product.

This will also be a great opportunity to see if your product is on the right track while also working through major technical issues or add requested features. Prepare your marketing team, customer, and technical support, and sales team. Also, determine your pricing strategies and other necessary details.

Think of it as running beta tests for an app.

Constantly test and redesign your prototype until a viable design is determined. Once adjustments are made with constant testing between markets and consumer groups, it’s time to move into large-scale production and the official launch. Continuous testing the product for performance, market testing is also performed to check whether the product will be successful in serving the defined market or user group. This will give you a clear idea of whether customers are interested in what you have to offer and will purchase once it’s officially in the market. Thus, testing is the most critical step in product designing.

5. Product Launch & Iterating

It’s time to commercialize your new product by bringing it into the marketplace. When launching your product in the market, it’s wise for you to only focus on the core features so that your product can simply move forward and start generating sales figures.

When you launch your product, start your production at a relatively low level of volume and increase it slowly as your product starts to gain traction with your audience. Lastly, don’t forget to constantly update and iterate as per growing customer needs. Launching your product doesn’t mean the product design process is over. It’s an ongoing process that continues as long as the product is alive and in use. Look out for ways you can improve it further and iterate as required.

To Conclude

Designing a product is a complex process but it isn’t difficult when you understand the needs and problems of your potential customers. After all, they’re the ones that are going to use it eventually. To design a product that succeeds you need to identify a problem, define the users facing that problem, and deliver the solution. Working with a product development company like Spark Eighteen will help you steer clear of more than half of these tasks to ensure a smooth product development process.

Collaborate with us today and let’s work towards your product development and design!

Every product that we come across often starts with a mere thought. An entire mix of creativity, innovation, and confidence is what it takes to turn an idea or a concept into a successful product. But how to build a product that succeeds? Product development can be an extremely time-consuming and overwhelming thought process. While some product entrepreneurs succeed with their idea, some wonder as to what went wrong with their product development process.

In case you have an idea or are thinking of building a product, these few tips will come in handy to invest your money correctly into a product.

Keep your Company’s Goals and Vision Clear

You probably don’t want a product without a vision, right? It is highly important to set clearly defined goals and vision for your company that will subsequently be used to underline your product’s existence.

Know What You Aim To Accomplish

While the company’s vision is critical, you must answer these simple questions before executing the product idea:

• What problem does your product aim to solve?
• What makes your product so valuable?
• Is your product idea viable?

If you’ve tried to answer, you’ll know that your product idea needs a lot more consideration and thoughtful approach to its actual implementation.

Be Well-versed With The Market

While it’s easy to get enthralled by your idea and overlook the most important steps in the product development process, you need to have a clear picture of the target market you’re looking to tap and analyze the market size that your product will cater to.

Be sure to gather all the essential information and validate your market before the actual product development process starts. It will also be beneficial to hold focus groups and make a note of all the factors pertaining to them.

Focus On A Simple Idea First And Build A Prototype

Since complex ideas require more time, money, and effort, it is recommended to plan for a simpler and basic version of your product idea making sure that it will solve the targeted vision.

People often spend excessive time in making the perfect product, only to realize that there is no perfect product since there is always room for improvement with technology being involved. It is, therefore, important to understand that product development is an iterative journey.

Creating a product prototype could help you figure out whether your big idea will actually work and succeed. The main purpose of a prototype is to validate the product concept and design before it is actually launched in the market. A product prototype can be anything from a sample, drawing, presentation or the replica of the final product design itself.

Analysis & Strategy Development

Now that you’ve worked on a product idea with a vision in sync with your company and gained an understanding of your target market, you should analyze, test and decide the business and marketing strategies that need to be employed.

This is the time when you need to further refine your product and identify areas of development based on the customer feedback received on the initial product prototype.

With a finalized concept of the product, start focusing on other factors and metrics like the cost to build and market the product, the competition for your product, marketing and branding strategies, break-even point, etc.
The testing results and a detailed analysis will help in reducing the risks and making your product ready for the perfect market launch.

The Cost Of Building A Product

When building a product, an entrepreneur would always try to anticipate the amount of capital it would require along with the other relatively reasonable expenses.

The development journey primarily comprises a development timeline, product/app team, elements to be incorporated, and post-release expenses. A basic app or a website development team would consist of:

• Project manager
• Developer
• UI/ UX Designer
• QA Engineer

The product development costs largely depend on the type of the product, the technical complexity it entails and the other needed support to successfully and innovatively implement the idea. It will vary for mobile app development (Android or iOS), desktop application, website development, and so on.

Nevertheless, you must figure out how much you want to shell out and have the visibility about what you are actually paying for. This will further guide you in understanding and analyzing the hourly rates that would be required for designing and development.

Besides, the price will further differ if you decide to get the product made in-house or outsource another company that approaches a kind of product development process. 

Let’s hear your product idea! Drop us a line here and build your very own product with us.