In a software-driven world, an MVP became a very popular and effective instrument for launching new products. To ensure a high quality minimum viable product, Softvoya provides customers with the most effective MVP service solutions during all stages of development.

Why is a Minimum Viable Product Important for Software Development Projects?

What is an MVP?

The creation of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the easiest way to prove the viability of a product idea. The term MVP stands for a first version of a new product that includes just enough features needed to satisfy early adopters. An MVP development enables companies to start a product faster with fewer expenses and make improvements after gathering user feedback.

There are 3 main objectives of an MVP:

• Viability verification. An MVP determines if the product ideas you offer meet market and user demands before the final solution is released.
• Cost and time reduction. Focusing only on core features, this approach enables companies to introduce a future product quickly with less effort, allowing developers to make adjustments step-by-step.
• Feedback analysis. While the final product must satisfy all users, an MVP is built to satisfy early adopters only. Analyzing feedback from the latter ensures all adjustments will be made in line with reviews from real people.

An MVP for Software Development

In software development, an MVP can be any product: a website, an application or even a CRM-system that is released with minimum efforts and time. An MVP development becomes the most effective way to start any new product as it envisages agile development cycles. The users get it faster, express their opinion and enable improving the product in the next development cycle.

Taking the above into account, here are the main points of an MVP for software development:

Advantages of Using an MVP programming for startups

In today’s world, 9 from 10 startups fail. Here are the most common reasons why it happens:

• lack of budget
• lack of market demand
• development of user-unfriendly solution
• ignoring customer feedback and initial idea approval

When creating a minimum viable product for an app or website, it is crucial to define the potential customers and conduct market research first, then focus on potential problems for future development. Therefore, building MVPs for startups helps companies find their place in the market faster and make a profit.

As a part of product development strategy, an MVP programming can help to:

• Define target audience and find early adopters. Building an MVP for a startup with a ton of additional features makes it harder to make adjustments in the future. Later, based on user reaction, you can add the desired elements during next steps of an MVP development without conducting expensive market research.
• Save time and money. A minimum viable product development leads to early learning and MVP launch with a minimal budget. In the future, you can invest in further product development and add as many new features as you need when the project turns a profit.
• Attract investors. Although the final product may look good on paper, an MVP is more likely to attract investors as it is a functioning project.

Therefore, in a world where almost all new projects fail just after their release, building MVP for startups enables companies to avoid risk of negative feedback, reduce costs and save time.

Getting Started with Creating an MVP

Although an MVP project has fewer features than a fully functioning system, software development process still requires the following steps before the product launch:

1. Conduct market research

The starting point is to check if your software idea meets the market needs and target users. Ensure your project is innovative and interesting by conducting surveys: interview potential users and define customer pain points, and don’t forget about competitors. Conduct market research to analyze your closest rivals’ strengths and understand your competitive advantage.

2. Define MVP key feature list

List all the features users may need and divide them based on priority. Leave only a minimum feature set that is vital for performance of the initial version and move forward to MVP programming.

Later, more detailed feedback from users is required, so you need to:

• Choose users
• Make a list of core MVP features
• Prepare CustDev questionnaire

After the evaluation, you can move on to build an MVP.

3. Begin MVP development process and testing

Creating a basic prototype is critical here, as it shows whether users really want to install the app on their computers or mobile devices. After CustDev is ready, the development team prepares Technical Specifications and provides a clear picture of the product, as well as essential estimations of cost and timeframe for development.

Basically, MVP development consists of user interface design and front-end and back-end development. The aim is to get a high-fidelity interactive prototype of the product, which allows users to navigate through the mobile app/website. For apps, you can choose one platform for development (iOS or Android) or select a cross-platform approach.

When the customer is in touch with the team at every development stage, the testing process becomes more productive due to immediate feedback and prompt actions towards adjustments. That’s why the use of Scrum is preferable here, as it allows finding a product’s weak points at early development stages. The customer and the development team perform each task from sprint to monitor the results efficiently and provide proper MVP service solutions during the product development process.

4. Learn from feedback

As an MVP for software development is a long process, it should be tested on a regular basis. The goal is to collect feedback and make appropriate adjustments to the actual product in the future.

Crucial mistakes in MVP software development

A minimum viable product creation is about sticking to a plan. Here are common mistakes made when building a successful MVP for software development:

1. Disregarding market validation

One of the biggest mistakes many product owners make is ignoring early customers’ demands, user behavior and target market peculiarities. Lack of proper research can cost huge financial losses, not to mention time and efforts spent on MVP development.

2. Unprofessional Development Team
No matter what creative technology you use, if you don’t have a skilled MVP product development team experienced in software engineering, the project offers few prospects. To create strong minimum viable products, your team should consist of professional project manager, business analysts, designers, developers, QA engineers to provide effective MVP service solutions, otherwise you may face the following problems:

• Missed deadlines
• Hiring additional specialists/another development agency
• Poor feedback analysis

3. An overloaded MVP

Adding too much into your project may cause huge money and time losses and the entire process of development becomes meaningless. If it’s hard for you to choose key features, follow an Agile approach: divide the complex requirements into several simple features and set a deadline for every feature you have.

4. Ignoring the prototype creation

You should provide the users with a full mvp functionality, so it needs to be user friendly and appealing. Thus, do not ignore the design process: the app/website should have an interactive prototype, reflecting the product information architecture and including interactive elements.

5. Disregarding User Feedback

User opinion determines whether the complete product will be in demand or not. You should take it seriously: it’s not about simply gathering information, but also reaching proper conclusions. Reviewing user interest ensures you will make appropriate adjustments to the project and deliver a value proposition to satisfy users’ needs.

Wrapping Up

Today, MVP software development is the best method for finding out whether the full fledged product will be successful or not on the market with the least effort. MVP approach means finding a balance between minimum efforts spent and creating a functioning product. Softvoya enables project analysis during all stages of development, providing assistance based on the established strategy.