{"id":761,"date":"2019-04-25T19:08:39","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T19:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smart-bricks.net\/?p=761"},"modified":"2019-04-28T22:23:12","modified_gmt":"2019-04-28T22:23:12","slug":"why-you-need-to-have-a-minimum-viable-product-mvp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.smart-bricks.net\/index.php\/2019\/04\/25\/why-you-need-to-have-a-minimum-viable-product-mvp\/","title":{"rendered":"Why you need to have a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>An MVP is <strong>a product with just the basic set of features that allows you to release it to market<\/strong>. Do not miss the reasons why having it is key for your business.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It does not matter how solid your business plan is or how exhaustive \nthe market research done before launching a product is. There will \nalways be unforeseen surprises, <strong>things that you will not know until that precise moment where the final users of your product start using it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How do you know if the product you are planning to launch will be \nuseful for the final users? Will those potential customers use that \nproduct? Is that idea you have only good for you or for many people? <strong>The best way to identify and answer all those questions is to build and release a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to the market.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many companies, when they decide to build a new product or software, still do not know <strong>how valuable building an MVP is<\/strong>, or they simply do not know what it is. That said, let\u2019s begin by figuring out what this is all about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>What is a Minimum Viable Product?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>An MVP is <strong>a product with just the very basic, but necessary, set of features that allows a company to release it to market.<\/strong>\n Those options and features should be enough to capture the attention of\n early adopters and make your idea unique. In a few words, that MVP will\n be a simpler version of the final product, which will help you to \nvalidate your idea with the potential clients\/users with the least \namount of effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A Minimum Viable Product is the fastest way to go from an idea to a business.<\/strong>\n Lots of established companies you already know, such as AirBnb, Uber, \nInstagram, or Dropbox, among others, started once as MVPs and then \nevolved into what they are now. Those are just some examples that prove \nthat you can start with an MVP and then evolve into something bigger and\n more complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An MVP helps you test your ideas in real market conditions before you create the full product. Here are other<strong> benefits you can get by building a Minimum Viable Product:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>You can release the product to the market sooner.<\/li><li>It will allow you to save time and money by detecting risks at comparatively low costs.<\/li><li>It reduces time and implementation costs.<\/li><li>It helps you to avoid failures (and important capital losses).<\/li><li>As you work directly with actual clients, you can analyze their \nbehaviors and preferences in order to improve the development of the \nproduct.<\/li><li>You obtain user feedback and analytical information to improve the result.<\/li><li>You can test the performance of the product, how fast it can be.<\/li><li>The demand can be evaluated.<\/li><li>You get very useful and realistic improvement ideas.<\/li><li>It allows you to evaluate your product\u2019s functionalities. You get information about what works and what does not work.<\/li><li>You gain loyalty from your clients. They will value all the effort you are putting forth to make them happy.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2>Common mistakes when building an MVP<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Although the idea and concept of a Minimum Viable Product looks pretty simple, many companies still misunderstand it.<\/strong> They cannot avoid looking for the <em>perfect product<\/em>, trying to include every single feature they have in mind and losing focus on the main value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the end, the product is overloaded with unnecessary features, and \nas it is by no means finished, it is never released to the market. Even \nif that ever happens, it is too late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Adding unnecessary features<\/strong> to a product is one of \nthe common errors. You need to focus on the core value of the product, \nthings that contribute to the success of it, instead of wasting time and\n resources on options that no one would ever use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another common mistake when trying to reduce functionality as much as possible to get a Minimum Product is <strong>to cut key features<\/strong>.\n It is important to understand that when we talk about an elementary set\n of features, it does not mean that we can deliver an unfinished product\n or one that lacks functionality that would be expected or needed. It \nstill needs to be a viable product, one that allows the users to use it \ncompletely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The MVP must <strong>include minimum features, but it also must contain a complete customer experience<\/strong>.\n You should not present a poorly designed product to the market, because\n if you do that, the only thing you would achieve is turning customers \naway. It must have quality code and design and provide an even better \nuser experience and not just a group of random features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, it must be <strong>Minimum,<\/strong> and it must be <strong>Viable<\/strong>. You cannot just pick one of those attributes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Choosing the right features for your MVP<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s say the product you have in mind is one that allows users to \nget around faster than on foot. You cannot start creating an MVP that \nwill someday in the future be a car. That MVP will not let the consumers\n of your product move to any place, and it will lack the core features \nand the main objective of the product you planned to build. This is \nclearly not the way to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You should start creating the simplest form of transportation that \ncan allow users to move quickly. Then, once you achieve that, you can \nmove forward and create a better version of it. <strong>You keep building, measuring, and learning<\/strong> until you finally get the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As you can see, with each iteration, you add important features to \nyour product. The important part is to take into account that <strong>every release must be a product that can be used on its own<\/strong>. You cannot expect the users to wait a couple of releases until it becomes something useful and complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another advantage of doing this is that if you cannot finish your \nproduct completely, getting the best version you had in mind (in this \ncase a car), and you have to abruptly interrupt the construction \n(because you are running out of money, for example),<strong> you will still have something that is fully operational<\/strong>: a bicycle or motorcycle, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3>To sum up<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>As we have reviewed,<strong> the Minimum Viable Product allows you to\n find out a lot about your idea and their users with very little effort \nand by maximizing your budget.<\/strong> You need to consider having an \nMVP because it gives you the opportunity to test your product with \nactual users in the real market and to obtain the necessary early \nfeedback that makes the difference between success and failure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An MVP is a product with just the basic set of features that allows you to release it to market. Do not miss the reasons why having it is key for your business. It does not matter how solid your business plan is or how exhaustive the market research done before launching a product is.&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.smart-bricks.net\/index.php\/2019\/04\/25\/why-you-need-to-have-a-minimum-viable-product-mvp\/\" class=\"\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Why you need to have a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[14,17],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-bricks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-bricks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-bricks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-bricks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-bricks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-bricks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":762,"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-bricks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions\/762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-bricks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-bricks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.smart-bricks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}