The Minimum Viable Product or MVP consists of creating a product with enough features to attract customers and validate it in the early stages of the development cycle. In this article we explain what MVP is, its benefits and how to carry it out.
What is a minimum viable product?
A minimum viable product, or MVP, is the version of a new product that allows a research and development team to gather the maximum amount of validated customer learning with the least amount of effort. In other words, it is the most basic version of the product that a company can bring to market. So it allows to measure consumer response and acceptance prior to full-scale commercialization.
This technique not only helps to discover the technical feasibility of a new product through the design of a minimum viable product, but also allows the research team to detect shortcomings and strengths in order to make the necessary modifications and implement the most effective marketing strategies.
In fact, the idea behind the concept of the minimum viable product is to obtain consumer feedback, which in turn will help to make the desired changes in the final product.
What is the purpose of a minimum viable product?
In addition to validating a product design idea from a multidisciplinary approach without building the entire product, an MVP can also help minimize the company’s time and resources. So much so that the first step in developing a minimum viable product is to make sure that the product will align with the company’s strategic objectives. Along these lines, we must ask ourselves what the product we want to develop will be used for and whether it will attract new users.
In short, an MVP will serve to: Figure out what works in the company’s target market and what doesn’t, deliver new functionality to existing customers, translate your product design into a development roadmap to bring it to market as soon as possible, and test an idea with real users before investing in full product development.
How to develop a minimum viable product
- First, a specialized team will analyze the target market.
- Next, hypotheses will be made about the needs of the users and the capacity to satisfy them with the product to be launched.
- Once this has been done, the MVP will be designed and developed with the basic characteristics necessary to test it with a selection of consumers and find out whether the product does, in fact, meet the objectives.
- Finally, based on the information obtained from the experiment, the team either continues with the final development of the product or makes the necessary modifications to improve and retest it.
However, a vital part of product development lies in the evolution of the idea: from a single concept to a fully operational product or service.
Between the idea and the completed product is the MVP prototype, which will be validated through testing. In this phase, it is necessary to obtain feedback and opinions from the target audience with which quality control engineers, such as the ones we have at Infinitia Research, will work to improve the quality of the product.
This process can be summarized in the following phases:
- Conduct a market study.
- Devise the added value by answering the question: What value will the new product offer to users?
- Prioritize the basic features of the MVP.
- Build the prototype and validate it.
- Launch the MVP for testing with a selection of real users.
- Get feedback, measurements and results.
Finally, it will be necessary to review everything thoroughly after launching the minimum viable product. That is to say, to collect the customers’ reaction to the launch. Thanks to their comments and contributions, it will be possible to determine the acceptability and competitiveness of the product in the market.
Do you want to make sure your new product succeeds in the market? At Infinitia we can help you, as we have the best experts in innovation and product development. Contact our strategic design and prototyping team to offer you the best solution.