What is Minimum Viable Product? A Comprehensive Guide (2021)

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Ajay Ohri
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Introduction

Lean Startup author Eric Ries provides a widely agreed description of the minimum viable product (MVP), defining “a version of a new product that allows a team to gather the maximum amount of validated customer knowledge with the least effort.” The MVP contains the features or improvements required for a group of users to solve a key challenge and succeed on the market in mobile app development. In this article, we will learn about, minimum viable product meaning, how to build a minimum viable product, how to create a minimum viable product, and the importance of the minimum viable product.

  1. What is the Minimum viable product?
  2. Purpose of Minimum Viable Product
  3. Uses of Minimum Viable Product
  4. Benefits of Minimum Viable Product
  5. Minimum Viable Product Example

1. What is the Minimum viable product?

Minimum viable product meaning: As popularized by Eric Ries, minimum viable product (MVP) means the simplest product version that the corporation plans to put to the market, only to consider consumer reactions and input. This, actually encourages the enterprise to deliver the finished product to the market.

See the minimum viable commodity means the minimum definition, while maximum-maximum value generation is all about it. It doesn’t mean that to deliver optimal operation, you need to provide your consumers with optimum product characteristics.

The minimum viable product = Only essential maximum value  maximum amount of validated learning with least effort

In other words, “It is the marketing strategy in which a new product with minimal functionality is launched on the market, yet sufficient to attract buyers’ interest,” is the minimum viable product concept.

2. Purpose of Minimum Viable Product

Eric Ries, who as part of his Lean Startup philosophy, developed the idea of the minimum viable product, explains the function of an MVP in this way: It is the version of a new product that helps a team to gather the most amount of confirmed customer learning with the least effort.

A business can want to create a minimum viable product and release it because its product team needs to:

Release a commodity as soon as possible to the consumer

Test a concept with actual customers before committing a significant budget to the complete production of the software

Know what resonates with the target demographic of the business and what doesn’t

A Minimum Viable Product will also help reduce the time and money you might otherwise devote to developing a product that would not work, in addition to helping your business to test a concept for a product without having to develop the whole product.

3. Uses of Minimum Viable Product

  • A decreased expenditure in both time and resources decreases the likelihood of business failure and allows teams the ability during growth to learn and adapt.
  • MVPs also first get to the market, allowing them to gain a foothold ahead of any rivalry.
  • In real markets, early and fast research validates the proof of concept.
  • MVPs need quick iterations to address the temptation to construct perfect features so that feedback can be gathered.
  • Early feedback can provide good signals for product-market fit. To meet customer needs, teams can rapidly create and release features.

4. Benefits of Minimum Viable Product

  • Winning Buy-In by Stakeholder/Investor: In several ways, corporations rely on buy-in from partners or promoters to obtain financing to get the green light on a mobile project. Developing an MVP is an optimal way to gain this buy-in, as it helps entrepreneurs to consider why their project will succeed before going to customers, meaning that they will have a sound business case before they do, showing the product’s commercial validity. Also, an MVP is a completely working object, so corporations can display a physical product to investors.
  • Company Principles checking: The best value of having an MVP is that it helps companies to test their company ideas. Organizations may test that a product model resonates with who they consider to be their target audience by delivering the core package of features rather than a full-blown, feature-heavy product, creating an incentive to adjust the course of a product based on results. Organizations would have the ability to determine what kinds of social groups are the most involved consumers and how they communicate with the product before the product is launched.
  • Verifying demand in the industry: All about checking, seeing what works and what does not work is an MVP. An MVP is in certain ways, more about trying to grasp consumer demand than trying to sell or gain customers. Organizations sometimes believe that their product addresses a particular consumer need; this may not be the case, however, as either the need does not exist or the pain point is met by solutions already on the market. An MVP helps companies to test their product’s market demand, figuring out whether potential customers need the product and will use it without having to spend huge sums of money.
  • Developing a Plan for Monetization: Goods must be profitable. Constructing a reliable source of revenue when it comes to mobile apps requires identifying a monetization plan for mobile apps. However as various strategies for app monetization be effective, it can often be difficult to determine which strategy is best. Businesses might think that one approach would work with many factors in mind, but eventually, it may not be the right option.

5. Minimum Viable Product Example

You may be shocked to hear how two of the most popular brands in the world have started as the least viable items. Here are a few of our favorite tales:

A) About Airbnb

It’s the world’s largest lodging network today, but Airbnb started with only a blow-up mattress on the floor and 3 paying guests, who booked via a basic AirBed & Breakfast website.

B) From Twitter

It’s impossible to imagine that Twitter began as an internal tool for the Odeo podcast network, with 500 million tweets sent each day.

The initial ‘hook’ of Twitter was that it allowed people’s teams to exchange updates via SMS, but this spiraled out of reach fast, with workers wasting hundreds of dollars on cellphone bills!

C) To Spotify

Music streaming hadn’t made it into the mainstream previous to Spotify.

Yet the Spotify team pursued a four-stage iterative growth cycle to make sure they were all going in the same direction: Consider it. Oh, construct it. Just mail it. Just tweak it.

Conclusion

Many product teams have generally adopted the MVP technique. As noted above, however, there are real drawbacks. It is not necessary to have the bare minimum to retain and engage clients in the long term. In markets where many alternative options exist and clients have high aspirations, it is also not sufficient. From the onset, clients want and expect to be delighted. While many teams seek an MVP, creating a lovable product usually produces better results.

Interested to learn all about Product Management from the best minds in the industry? Check out our Product Management Course. This 6-month-long program takes place online through live instructor-led sessions. It is the only program in India that offers the ‘Bring Your Own Product (BYOP)’ feature so that learners can build their product idea into a full-blown product, and go through an entire Product Development lifecycle. Not only this, but this is the only program in India with a curriculum that conforms to the 5i Framework. Post completion, learners receive a joint certification from the Indian Institute of Management, Indore, and Jigsaw Academy. 

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