The MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
The acronym/phrase often gets thrown around when discussing how to start prototyping and building your product, though it is not often expressed about how important the process of creating the MVP is to the success of your startup. The reason I say that is because the process serves as the first time you are forced to hone your startup idea into its core value proposition, with the intention of verifying your assumptions. The act of doing so will have lasting effects on what you decide your core value add is, and thus how your product will be created and monetized.
The reason I say this is that in order to make an MVP, you will need to decide what is the minimum amount of things that need to be built in order to prove your value proposition to your customer segments. The trap here is that even though you may have multiple value propositions, you will need to pick the minimum amount to test, ideally one core value proposition. This is where your market research will come into play. Only the market can tell you which value proposition(s) will be the most important in bringing customers to your product.
As you can see, if your market research was not done well, it can lead to you choosing the incorrect value propositions to test. By testing the wrong value propositions, you will end up wasting time and possibly come to the conclusion that your product has no value proposition(s) to your market(s). If you do find that a minor proposition is enough to get customers, it could lead you to ignore your true value proposition and lead to poor product decisions that could lead to things like lower monetization ability, increased customer acquisition costs,, or lower lifetime value of your customers. All of these effects can have a serious impact on the success of your startup.
The main tip is that you have to have a thorough understanding of your market and the problem that you are solving for through quality market research of a large sample size. Basically, are the questions you are asking and the assumptions that you are making the correct ones, and is the number of people you have surveyed enough for you to confirm the assumptions and understand the pains of the market.
Hopefully, it is clear how important the process of creating an MVP is and when you get to this point, that you take your time to make sure you are designing the correct MVP with accurate market data.
“The MVP has just those features considered sufficient for it to be of value to customers and allow for it to be shipped or sold to early adopters. Customer feedback will inform the future development of the product.” ― Scott M. Graffius, Agile Scrum: Your Quick Start Guide with Step-by-Step Instructions
Sources: personal experience
