The MVP: Start small and iterate
The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.
– Eric Ries
You’ve been working for a few weeks/months on a new concept that is presumably going to add a lot of value to your business and — more important at this point you have a rough picture of what you want to do. That’s it; that’s all you have. No clue if that’s the next billion dollar idea or your next mistake. So suddenly you realise that whereas ideas are cheap, you’ve got limited resources and, at the end of the day, it all comes down to use your resources in the most efficient way.
One of the most important aspects, when you’re building a product, is how you define the scope what’s part of the v1 and what should wait? It’s a common question at that stage of the process. Making those decisions could be a tricky task, and you might make the mistake of defining the scope wrongly and to try to have a fully product before you even make a first release (which at that point will probably too late). Here is where the MVP approach tries to bring some light.
Suddenly you realise that whereas ideas are cheap, you’ve got limited resources, and at the end of the day it all comes down to use your resources in the most efficient way
What’s the MVP?
A minimum viable product (MVP) has only the core functionalities for the product to be tested with a group of users, usually early adopters, and allow the product team to get as much feedback as possible and therefore validate the concept. It’s more a strategy for learning through iterations than a real product.
The MVP approach allows you to reduce the number of needed resources at the same time you find out what’s not working. By failing often, you get to improve the product and get rid of those non-working functionalities in your next iteration.
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game’s winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that’s why I succeed.” — Michael Jordan, NBA Hall of Famer.
Ultimately, you iterate until you obtain the right product/market fit :)
THE TAKEAWAY: fail early, fail often
Just a quick example
Let’s jump into specifics and assume your company wants to develop a new social network based on the weaknesses of an existing one.
After a couple of months working on the idea, you come up with a few wireframes and some designs that make you feel ready to start breaking down the concept into specific tasks. Well, at this point, instead of setting the priorities of each specced task and start the development, you should consider the MVP approach to first validate the idea.
To do that you only need to create a landing page (you don’t even need expensive developers yet!) and make sure you add analytics and a way to collect the email of interested users. When the website is ready, you’ll also need to spend some money on marketing campaigns to ensure a minimum set of page-views. A/B testing on different concepts it’s also an option to be considered.
Once you have enough quantitative data, you‘re able to start validating your idea and kick off the iteration process based on real necessities of your users.
THE TAKEAWAY: A/B testing on different concepts can give you a better understanding of your users
Closing thoughts
I firmly believe in the MVP approach for building digital products, but I’ve also learned a few things the hard way that is worth to mention:
- Keep the scope small. Focus on the very few things you need for testing your idea and stick to that. It’s hard to say no to those extra functionalities.
- Unrealistic deadlines. Take your time until you get the feedback and then validate your idea (spending quality time on the discovery phase can avoid you a lot of waste on the actual development)
If you’re interested in learning more about MVP I’d recommend having a look at:
