MVP development

Do you think a startup is tremendously complicated and requires tons of money and effort? Something that can take years of preparation and solid investment? Let’s break your fallacy! 

The team of experts sheds light on the process of how you can bring your project to life. The key to opening the door in business, innovation and fundraising is mvp development. Follow the link to learn more about opportunities, drawbacks and professional tips concerning the issue.

The first delusion when we talk about MVP is to treat it like a preliminary variant of the product or just a prototype. No. MVP is a separate product that can bring all the value of your idea to users. Thanks to core functionality, MVP makes it possible to use it as a complete solution for troubleshooting.

There are a bunch of benefits you can win due to mvp development. Launch your business, get honest feedback and attract investment. 

Yes, you can start with an app prototype, and the guys mentioned above have such a lucky case in their portfolio. But it seems to be an exception in investment practice: business angels prefer to deal with more tangible projects. Starting with an MVP would be more effective in terms of time and money.

A minimum viable product is a perfect tool to find out if there is someone in the world who cares about the problem you intend to solve. It’s a cute way to test your idea in practice with minimal investment and short term. 

You don’t need to build the Titanic to find out if people are interested in journeys by sea. What you need is a small but reliable ship. You can save money to hire a professional team, improve marketing and do other critically essential things. Never lose the thought that building an MVP is just the start of your business journey. Make wise budgeting one of the fundamental elements of your future success.

An MVP is a product with core functions and a cute design that really works. This is a basic version of a complex solution, but this version is perfectly done. The users can load your app from Google Play and use it. Solving their tasks with your app will give you valuable feedback and help make the solution better. Don’t worry about any other features: you can add them later, flexibly responding to customers’ needs.

You check your hypothesis and see how it works in the market. Your decision to develop your project further would be based on the collected data. It’s more reliable than gut feeling. As you can prove the market needs your solution, and there’s an opportunity to scale, it would stand your project out from the startup crowd. That’s why it increases your chances of getting investments essentially.

Using MVP, you can check if there’s a market demand for your goods or services. MVP helps you do this at a rapid pace and within captive budgets. It usually takes 3-5 months to release this kind of solution, depending on the complexity of the project and the development team’s approach.

Now let’s talk about what to undertake to build an MVP worth success.

1. Define the problem your product will solve. 

To make sure you are on the right way, ask yourself these questions:

• What problem will an MVP solve?
• Who will use it?
• Why will people use it?
• In which situations?
• Are there any competitors? 
• What are my product’s advantages and disadvantages? 

Another way to discover your product’s core idea is to look at your future development from the user’s perspective. If you were the user of your app, which would be your answers:

• What are my goals and benefits?
• Why do I use it? 
• When can it be helpful? 
• What are the existing alternatives to this tool? 
• Why don’t I want to use them?

The better you know your target audience, the greater product you will be able to create.

Since you understand what problem, how and why the app will solve, it’s time to explore the market to know more about the business niche. 

2. Analyze the market, and research the existing solutions.

If your product is unique, ask yourself why. The answer could be overwhelming: no one cares about the problem you’d love to solve. We hope it’s not your case. But what if no one knows how to solve the problem? Let us congratulate you! The faster you deliver a product to the market, the tremendous success you can achieve.

It’s common to have enough competitors. Analyze them and try to turn all their shortcomings into your benefits.

3. Create a concept of MVP

 As your preliminary market research is completed, it’s time to define the core idea of your product. Focusing on the purposes of your future clients, you can specify the list of the critical functions the MVP should have. Try to distinguish the core features that are fundamentally important for the «workability» of your app. Don’t worry about different improvements; if necessary, you can add them later. Building MVP in an agile approach enables you to create complex construction gradually, step by step. As you implement functions per the user’s needs, you can prioritize the core functions. Honest feedback lets you see what needs to be changed and how.

For example, when Uber founders started, they tried to get orders via the app and distribute them between drivers. They initially worked as a dispatcher service but having been overloaded once; they decided to assign orders directly to taxi drivers. So the unique MVP was born.

As you see, you can find a perfect model for your business after starting your project. But we recommend considering business strategy at the early stages: define your business model, value proposition and USPs before you begin an MVP development.

4. Map out the user flow

As long as you understand what you are going to offer, to whom and why you can build a roadmap for an MVP app development. Focusing on the goals of the potential users, try to depict all the steps that lead to the purpose. Let’s sketch where your product’s key features will be represented. At this stage, you may need professional support. You can feel a synergistic effect working with a Scrum Master and Scrum Team: developing the concept by brainstorming is a powerful way to catch the best. Leaning on specialization and expertise in building MVPs of professional UI/UX specialists, you can be guided through this stage and get profound business-oriented feedback.

The user flow will become a cornerstone for all the following steps.

5. Design, develop & test.

The most creative and exciting part of the MVP building process. It’s time to assign an IT team for cooperation, determine a budget and time limit, and create a backlog (the list of tasks by priorities).

Working on UI/UX design & wireframing presupposes choosing the appropriate visual elements to make your idea work. It makes a difference to invest time and money in design. The user-friendly interface eases an intuitive way for the app user to solve his problem. At the same time, it should look unique and savoury to attract an audience.

The development of critical features provides your MVP with the necessary functions. Don’t underestimate testing: as every piece of the job is completed, QA engineers make sure everything works as needed. It saves time, money and nerves.

For example, at Purrweb, developers work on projects using Scrum. It’s convenient for the team and beneficial for the clients. Working on a wide range of tasks simultaneously, guys can fulfil a great project in strict timelines (three months) and on budget. It can cost from several thousand up to 38 thousands dollar per app. 

Creating MVP is a flexible ongoing process, so don’t worry about preparing all the necessary specifications in advance.

Every two weeks, you’ll see the developers’ results during the meeting. During the process, you can impact the development of the MVP by altering requirements to design elements or functions: add some features or get rid of others.

6. Roll out the MVP and collect user feedback. 

This is an exciting moment when your first users get access to the MVP app and start using it in real life. You can see if it’s an actual problem which your product helps manage. Based on stats and analysis, the future development of your project will be more predictable and reliable.

Collecting user feedback will help you to understand which features need to be improved or added and which are excessive: you can get rid of them.

7. Make changes aligned to acquired insights. It will accelerate the creation of a product that meets all user’s needs and desires.

After turning your idea into a soundly made product, you can try to attract investment and enjoy exponential growth and profitability of your startup. 

Developing your MVP in Scrum, you won’t feel confused by changes that your product needs: in a scrum team, it’s a common practice to work according to an alive pulse of the project and scale when necessary.

Flexibility, productivity, effectiveness and speed – are the features that distinguish professional teams in MVP development. Step by step, they will embody the tasks from the backlog (like a timetable for your project) into a top-notch product.

We know these tons of tasks seem to be a bit overwhelming. But when you are inside the process, it becomes an exciting adventure where every team member does their best to help you launch an MVP you dreamt of. But when you start discussing the details of your project with experts, you’ll be able to see different sides of it and feel the path. All you need to do is find an experienced team with well-established processes, an extraordinary related portfolio and excellent reviews. After that, you can trust them to guide you through all these stages and create an MVP worth thriving in the market.

source https://www.jbklutse.com/mvp-development/