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Every primary product, whether a chain of stores or famous software, once started with an idea. Simply because someone once thought, “What if…” — and decided to test their hypothesis. And that is the principle by which startups are now most often formed.
However, it may not be easy for tech startups to test an idea for viability. Implementing a full-fledged program, an app, or a website takes a lot of time and money. Not every startup can afford it — for example, a team of in-house developers will cost too much. So what do you do in this situation, and how do you know if your product makes sense and its prospects?
The answer is simple: a tech startup should think about creating a minimum viable product. Without it, you can spend a massive amount of time, money, and human resources on a product that has no chance of becoming successful. Or even worse: create a project that would have given every opportunity to succeed if you knew about the risks and issues that may arise along the way.
A minimum viable product (MVP) will help you check at the beginning of the project development path to see if your idea has a chance of life. You’ll be able to find out how responsive the idea is to people, and even before you start creating a full-fledged program, app, or other tech startups, you’ll know what problems your potential users are facing. You will see how they interact with your development, and you will be able to fix the “awkward places” before they are firmly embedded in the whole development structure.
Minimum Viable Product: What Is It, And What Are Its Advantages
MVP is a product that implements a short list of basic features of a complete product. In other words, it is a test version of an application, website, program, or any other startup.
Suppose we’re talking about MVP for startups. In that case, this MVP is likely to be a simple site or an application without many features but the ability to perform one particular task. For example, collecting purchase orders or generating random numbers, or performing any other job you set for your test version of the product.
The benefits of using MVPs are confirmed by many successful cases where a product started with a single-function software that soon succeeded.
One of the most famous examples is the music listening service Spotify. In the beginning, the developers of the platform focused on one thing: creating a music streaming service. It wasn’t until much later that the platform began to have other features. And look where Spotify is now: the app is one of the most well-known music streaming services.
Another good example is MeinFernbus, which has become Germany’s leader in transportation services. After MeinFernbus merged with FlixBus, the company has more than 75% of the transport market in the country. And at one time, MeinFernbus also started by developing test software. On their website, you could do a few simple things — choose a route (the list of ways was minimal) and the trip date, buy a ticket, print it out, and… that was it, end of the story. Now the service has many more features, but the company determined that the idea has the right to life thanks to that test version of the site. And they weren’t wrong! Now they have huge profits, and the company is launching new transportation routes and adding new services.
Basically, you can approach the creation of any product from an MVP perspective — from the house to the software. This will optimize the process and get the best result with minimal effort. Even the famous rental service, Airbnb, started as a test resource. Its founders wanted to rent out their apartment for a short period and wrote a simple site for this, where people could book dates for a visit. Soon they were already hosting their first guests, and the idea began to grow and soon became a full-fledged product already used by millions worldwide.
What Do You Need To Know About MVP?
What is MVP in a startup? Let’s find out.
A startup MVP can help you determine whether your idea is viable or not. To test a hypothesis (and hypotheses are the basis of every startup), you must
- Formulate the hypothesis as clearly as possible.
- Understand what criteria you can use to assess the viability of the hypothesis
- Develop an MVP to test the hypothesis
- Analyze the results after launching the MVP
- Summarize the findings and move on to testing the following hypothesis if your product needs it
The first thing to know about MVP development for a startup is that a viable product is not the same as a rushed, poorly made product.
Think back to when you were studying and taking notes on lectures from professors. It’s a near-impossible task to write everything down, get the gist, and leave legible handwriting in the class. But writing down the key points that will help you later recall the essence of the whole lecture or record the main dates, concepts, and terms is quite realistic and will bring more benefit.
An MVP is like a demo of your product containing only its key features. You’ll see how much your idea resonates with people by running such a demo.
It’s also crucial that the MVP helps to weed out the superfluous. Research shows that about 60% of the features of many products are not used. Instead of wasting time developing features that will end up being underutilized, you can focus on improving the core features of your product. Building an MVP for startups will help you from the very beginning of your product’s existence to understand what is primary and what is secondary in your product and distribute your time on feature development in appropriate proportions.
The development team can concentrate on the main features necessary for the end users and only then finish small details in less demand. Thus MVP helps to reduce the time needed to launch the product significantly. Also, thanks to the test product, you can get feedback from potential customers to understand what they like and do not like and determine even in the early stages of the product6 that it is worth improving.
So Why Do You Need Startup MVP Development?
With MVP, a startup can:
- Save money
- Test your product for relevancy
- Get feedback from real users
- Gain a loyal customer base
- Determine the optimal development direction
As a bonus, the MVP allows you to compare your product with your competitors. These days, it’s rare to create something that doesn’t have at least approximate equivalents. However, with a minimum viable product, you can determine what the strengths of your offerings may be compared to those of your competitors. Plus, even at developing a test product, you can analyze the problems similar products face in the market and ensure that you do not encounter these problems at the beginning of your journey.
Magnise MVP Development
Once you understand what MVP is for a startup, you can move on to hiring a development team that will create a quality, minimum viable product for you. Hiring developers on the staff at the initial stages of the startup is simply unprofitable, and finding candidates is a long and energy-consuming affair. But to find a company that is ready to provide you with an already working team of project managers, designers, developers, business analysts, marketing specialists, and others who will help you with the MVP development process is much easier.
MVP development services for startups are one of the essential activities of Magnise. We have over 15 years of experience in software development. We’ve worked with NASA and IOTa and launched over 450 successful projects. You will be delighted with our MVP development services, and our team will do everything possible to realize your idea the way you imagine it. Also, we always work for results, so our experts will ensure that your test version of the product proves viable and that you can move on to developing a full-fledged product.
We offer:
- A development team with extensive experience
- Choosing the best software solutions for your product
- High speed of execution
- Modern approach
- Consideration of your wishes at all stages of development
To ensure that we are a good fit for you, we can arrange a meeting to discuss your idea and our suggestions for its implementation. We will arrange a convenient time for a meeting, tell you about our work principles, and discuss how you see your future product. Magnise is a company that will do everything to make your product a success!
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