What is an MVP?

You’ve probably heard the term MVP (Minimum Viable Product) thrown around. But what does it actually mean? Essentially, an MVP is a product that has only the bare minimum features needed to test a hypothesis.

For example, if the plan is to create a mobile app for dog owners and make sure there’s demand for it before investing in development, then just offer some basic information about dogs on your website or through an email newsletter—you don’t need to build out anything more than this initially. The goal of an MVP is not necessarily to be perfect; but rather, it’s designed specifically with research in mind so you can learn from customers as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Don’t forget, the term ‘product’ is quite a loose definition. After all, an MVP is never something you would release as a marketable product! But an MVP is a product in the sense that it fulfills a need or desire.

The purpose of the MVP isn’t to generate revenue for your business – you’re a long way off that yet! Instead, it’s a tool in an experiment so you have something tangible to show people in order get their feedback on your product ideas. It’s used to test responses from potential customers and make adjustments before committing to costly production. This concept has been applied to both software development and hardware development, but it can also apply to other areas such as service design or marketing strategies. 

Why should you build an MVP for your ideas before investing in a more expensive product development process?

It’s a great way to get feedback from your target audience.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, an MVP is worth 10x that. Use your MVP to get your product ideas in front of potential customers and get a real sense of whether you’re on to something, or need to iterate. You’ll soon find out if you’ve overlooked something critical or made some bad assumptions.

MVPs are a good way to get feedback on your product idea before you invest too much time and money. When it comes down to it, the only thing that matters is whether people find value in what you’ve created or not—not how long you spent creating it. If they don’t like your product (or prototype), iterate until they do!

You can make swift changes based on the feedback you receive

One of the main advantages of an MVP is that they are designed to be flexible and easy to change, or if not, simple enough to be disposable, allowing you to start afresh as you learn.

MVPs are a great way to test your assumptions, and if you’re not getting the feedback you were expecting, just make a few tweaks and retry your testing with a new MVP. By using an iterative approach like this one, you’ll be able to validate or invalidate certain features of your product quickly without having sunk too much time into it in the first place.

You reduce your chance of failure with an MVP

A good product manager will always look for ways to minimize risks, and one of the best ways to do that is with an MVP.

Chances are, the first idea that pops in your head isn’t going to be the best possible version of it. In fact, chances are, most of your ideas are destined to fail. Testing with MVPs allows you to weed out the bad ideas from the good ones so that you don’t launch product ideas that fall flat.

Don’t launch products that are doomed to fail. Instead, test your ideas with MVPs and then tweak from there, based on the data you collect during your discovery phase. 

You’ll save money making an MVP

Building the wrong thing is expensive! By investing a small amount of time and effort into an MVP, you prevent the risk of wasting more expensive development time down the line.

There has never been a more competitive time in the market for software products, and it’s more important than ever to get Product-Market Fit right. It can be costly and time-consuming to build a solution that doesn’t solve customer problems or is too complex for your customers to use.

Investing in an MVP will help you test out whether or not what you’re building solves a problem people actually have before spending all of these resources on development work! 

If you have an idea for a new product, but don’t know where to start or how much it will cost to get off the ground, then building your MVP might be just what you need. An MVP is a minimal version of the final product that has only the features needed to test out your hypothesis and see if there’s demand in the market. You can also make changes quickly because it’s so inexpensive! The best part about this method? You’ll save money and reduce your chances of failure by testing different ideas before investing more time and resources into developing one product.