What is mvp?
Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Explained
A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a version of a new product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development. It focuses on validating core assumptions and learning about customer needs with minimal effort.
The key goals of an MVP are:
- Test a product hypothesis with minimal resources. An MVP helps to determine if there is real market demand for your product idea before investing heavily in full-scale development.
- Accelerate learning. By putting a basic version of your product in front of real users, you can quickly gather valuable feedback about what works and what doesn't.
- Reduce wasted engineering hours. By focusing on core functionality, you avoid building features that customers don't need or want.
- Get the product to early adopters as soon as possible. Early adopters are often more forgiving of imperfections and can provide valuable insights to help you refine your product.
- Serve as a foundation for future development. An MVP provides a solid base upon which to build more sophisticated features and functionality.
Key Characteristics of an MVP:
- Functional: It provides enough core functionality to solve a problem or meet a need for early users.
- Usable: It's easy enough for early users to understand and use without excessive effort.
- Desirable: It offers enough value to attract early adopters.
- Provides valuable feedback: Allows to get valuable customer feedback to iterate upon.
MVP vs. Prototype:
While both are early versions of a product, a prototype is primarily for internal testing and visualization, while an MVP is released to a limited audience for real-world feedback. A prototype might focus on a specific feature, whereas the MVP provides a minimal end-to-end experience.
Building an MVP:
- Identify the core problem: Clearly define the problem you're trying to solve.
- Define your target audience: Know who you are building for.
- Prioritize features: Determine the absolute essential features needed to solve the problem.
- Build the MVP: Focus on building a functional and usable product with the prioritized features.
- Measure and learn: Gather feedback from early adopters and use it to inform future development.
By following these steps you can develop your Minimum Viable Product more efficiently.