Minimum Viable Product or MVP is a term that’s doing fairly well in the world of app development. Of late, both startups and well-established companies have come up with an MVP before they release the finished product.

It not only helps the users become familiar with the features of the product but also gives the app development companies an insight into what features should be continued, enhanced, or discontinued.

Apart from validating the product assumptions, it also helps identify user pain points and satisfy early adopters. Now that MVP is an important part of app development, here are the basic steps that you can follow to create one.

Step 1: The idea, the need, and how it addresses your business requirements

MVP development begins with an idea and then checking whether there is a market for it. If the product addresses a specific gap in the market, or if there is a need for a product where contemporaries have not failed to make a mark, then you can develop on the idea and make your product idea stand out.

This will give more clarity on the kind of product that will click with the users. This ‘value to the users’ feature must be highlighted in the idea stage.

Once the idea has taken form and shape, categorize it into short-term and long-term goals that the product aims to achieve. Set success criteria that would then define each of the goals you’ve set.

Step 2: The product from the user perspective

Once the seed idea is firmly implanted in the product development team’s mind, the next step would be to map the user journey.

The journey begins right from the moment users are made aware of the product and its features, infusing interest in purchasing it, the actual buying process, checkout, and so on. The entire user journey must be finalized to keep user satisfaction and the end goal in mind.

To begin with the user journey in the right manner, it is important to identify the user first, as there will be different categories of users. Depending on the business priorities, you can focus on the users and their categories.

Identify the end result you need with each user, and that would be the story ending for each customer journey.

Step 3: Analyze the competitors

Once you study the product from the user perspective, you can analyze your competitors’ similar products, if they do have them.

If you have faith in the product’s uniqueness, then you can bring in your product confidently. If the product to be sold is similar to what a competitor is selling, then you can analyze that, and learn from the pitfalls they’ve made and the strengths you’ve identified.

Analyzing competitor products isn’t a tough task because there are tools that help you get insights about their app ranking (both globally and locally), sources of their traffic, and so on.

Once you analyze the feedback from competitor products, you can identify where the shortcomings are and address them.

Step 4: Define the design process stages and user flow

While defining the different stages of the product, it is important to look at it from the user’s perspective, right from the time they access it to when they sign out or log off.

Since it is an MVP, the primary focus should be on browsing, purchasing, managing, and receiving orders. These are the procedure stages, and when each of them is defined in detail, you can analyze the product features at each stage.

Step 5: Analyze the product features

List out the features that would be incorporated into the product based on low priority, medium priority, and high priority. Categorize them according to user interest before building the MVP. You can even create a prototype of all the necessary features before developing the MVP.

Step 6: Build the MVP, test and learn

So now that you have categorized and set the features of the MVP, it would be the right time to start building the MVP. Make it engaging and pleasing to the users because they are the people who will be delivering the final verdict.

During the testing stage of the product, there will be QA engineers involved, and then it goes through the beta and alpha testing stages.

You can conduct either one of the tests, or do alpha first and then beta later. In the alpha testing, you can release the MVP to close friends and family members and then, later release it to an even wider audience to collect their feedback.

With each testing, you can implement changes in the product features; after all, only the users will be able to determine what needs to be improved, and what needs to be retained. With each iteration, the product will be improved.

The next step is to analyze the success of the MVP after it is out. Here are some ways to measure MVP success:

User engagement

Percentage of active users

Number of signups for more features and services

Client feedback

Client acquisition cost (the money spent to get a paying customer)

Churn level of the product to analyze the number of people that have installed your application or stopped using it

Conclusion:

MVP can help you minimize costs while delivering value to customers in the shortest time possible. You can always gather the data and feedback and do further iterations on the product later on.

But when the MVP is out, it is possible to develop early relationships with customers. The trick lies in identifying the core features of the product and matching them with user wants and needs.

It is not important to invest fully in all the features of the product, just a dummy version would suffice to check how many real users are interested.

If you are looking to build a great MVP, then Cabot Technology Solutions would be a reliable partner with all the necessary skills and expertise to get your product on the road without much ado.