Creating an MVP for Your Startup: Your How-To Guide

Not all great ideas find their way to successful products. One of the main reasons for that is that people see the same idea differently. What you may recognise as a good product may be of no value to others. So how do you know if your product will be well received by the market?

The short answer to this is your product has good chances to succeed if it helps resolve issues that are important to other people. Now the question is how do you make sure that it does?

Here comes an interesting part. Previously, the main approach to figuring out whether your product idea is viable would be to do market research that involves conducting surveys and input from business analysts. These days there is a whole new concept that enables business owners to make a draft model of their product before launching it on the market.

MVP (minimum viable product) – is a basic model of your future product that has just enough features to be tested by potential customers. Based on the feedback received from them, business owners can then see if their product is of any value for others, and what they can improve to make it exactly what the customers want.

Here are a few tips that will help you to create an MVP for your startup.

– Make it easy to use and entitle it with core functions to get feedback later;

– Slow down on the expenses, make it just enough to test;

– Accommodate the needs of those who will be testing it on early stage;

– Make sure you get feedback from the early testers;

– Make pivoting possible after receiving the feedback to make improvements and amends.

– Choose a reliable software partner if you need help with MVP creation;

Some may wonder why to bother with creating an MVP. We at Magnise insist on building an MVP prior to launching a product and we can explain why.

What do you get out of building an MVP?

• You determine whether your product is right for the market and if it has the potential to scale up in the future.
• You can attract investors with the real thing rather than an idea and raise funds to launch your product.
• You can get users’ feedback on how your product works.
• You filter your product features to what is really needed and offer exactly what customers want –nothing less, nothing more.
• You can build a business model based on the features that the early testers liked.
• You avoid unnecessary costs associated with the features that proved to be useless to testers.

The benefits of building an MVP are obvious. So, where do you start with creating an MVP for your startup?

1. Do your market research

A journey of a thousand miles begins with… research. Study the market, see what products are already there, find out who your competitors are, find the gap that may become your competitive advantage. Market research is already included in Magnise MVP packages, so it simplifies the process.

2. See how your product adds value

What makes your idea valuable to others? The key thing here is to determine what the market really needs and yet does not have. It may be very useful features of the existing products that no one else has offered but really make a difference to users’ experience. Find that new something that you can offer.

3. Define product key features

Think of the features that your users may find useful at the start and develop your product further once you get the first feedback results. Even if your product is completely innovative, there must be a product similar to it on the market. Use it as a foundation to create new features.

4. Create a prototype

Once the aforementioned steps are completed, it is time to build an actual prototype of your product. Building a diagram of the product and its features is a helpful tool to explain your ideas to the team and decide on the final product version. Sometimes, it takes more than one prototype to build before moving to build an MVP.

5. Build an MVP

By now, you have done a good chunk of work. The important part at this stage is to build an actual product as quickly as possible, using as few resources as possible. Magnise MVP development resolves speed questions with the snap of fingers. We provide the fastest market entry in our 3 MVP packages.

The point of building an MVP is to have the key features in place that work well and not worry about getting a picture-perfect product at this stage. Make sure you test it internally beforehand. You never get a second chance to make a good first impression. Prioritise features. Choose only those that define the goal of your MVP. The rest can follow at a later stage of development.

6. Launch your MVP

Once your MVP is built, it is time to give it to external testers to get feedback. Make sure that you select your target audience whose interest are relevant to the product you are testing. Be open to any feedback, be it negative or positive. Remember, it is an excellent opportunity to make your product better.

Of course, the process of building an MVP may vary from product to product. One thing remains the same for all though, an MVP is an excellent opportunity to determine if your product will be successful.

Contact us if you have ideas for a new product but need help putting it together. Our experts will be happy to guide you through the process and share their best expertise in creating an MVP.

Let’s build your startup together with our MVP packages! Get in touch for more details.

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