How To Start From Nothing To Having an MVP in 3 Stages
This article highlights how to go from nothing to having a minimum viable product that can scale to become a business. You can find more of these tools and resources on www.startupplug.com.ng
Interestingly over 80% of respondents in a recent survey carried out by Startup Plug indicated that they are interested in being involved with a startup. Entrepreneurs are springing forth daily as more people want to become entrepreneurs, business owners or work with startups. For most people, the problem is where to start from and how to start. The truth is anyone can become a successful entrepreneur and you don’t have to start great. This article highlights how to go from nothing to having a minimum viable product that can scale to become a business in three stages.
Stage 1 — Finding a business Idea.
Ideas are where the business begins to grow from. It is the first step to building anything.
To be fair, ideas can come from anywhere, there are no ideal sources of ideas. Sometimes the best ideas are the common ideas we overlook, they become the best when they have been structured in an uncommon way. Most entrepreneurs or business coaches would tell you to do the following;
- Find out what you love the most. Identify your biggest passion.
- Identify your worst frustrations and your expected possible solution.
- Think about the world in 5, 10, or 15 years from now and think of the biggest challenges the world could face and how the solution to the challenge may look like.
And that’s really how most great business ideas in the world today came about. Find a real problem, think of the solution and that’s an idea you can start with.
Stage 2 — Validating your Idea.
Finding an Idea for a startup business may seem easy. It might even be the easiest part but finding the right idea that works, that’s the objective. You want to build a business that real people would patronize, and those ideas you’ve nurtured are going to be executed in a real world where real people exist. Validating your idea is the process of researching, testing and ascertaining that the idea would be viable when executed.
Think about a business idea as a hypothesis, it’s just a guess and a validated business idea means it has been researched and tested to work.
The major steps in the process of idea validation include;
- Information gathering activities such as face-to-face interviews with potential customers, sending out surveys, market research.
- Reviewing and interpreting the information gathered.
- Making Decisions — In trying to decide if an idea is viable or not, always remember that it is not always about you, It’s about the customers.
Stage 3 — Building an MVP (Minimum Viable Product).
For most businesses, building an MVP is a phase of the idea validation stage. The solution you are trying to build does not lie in the idea, it lies in your MVP. The MVP (minimum viable product) is a proof of concept that shows your validated idea as an actual feasible solution.
An MVP would help to test your solution early enough with your users and discover gaps and better ways to achieve the solution in future iterations.
An MVP is a minimum acceptable version of your product or solution and should be budget-friendly and should take a short time to develop.
This should be the minimum version that can be shared with customers to test out your initial validation feedback and also provide insights to what customers really want.
The process of building your MVP starts from expressing your ideas and listing out all the features. At this phase, the design process and user flow is the focus.
When the MVP is built, the next important thing to do is to measure and learn and keep iterating where necessary.
Startup Plug helps founders and aspiring entrepreneurs build and grow their startup business in any stage of their startup cycle.
Subscribe at www.startupplug.com.ng for more tips, content, tools, and resources on building and growing your startup.
More info?
For more information or if you want us to work with you to build your MVP, contact us via email at info@startupplug.com.ng
You can also follow us on social media — Twitter , Instagram , Facebook, and Linkedin for more updates and tips.
