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What is MVP Development and Should I Use This Strategy?

Posted by Sygma Technology on Apr 15, 2019
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How do you really know if there is a need for the software you are creating? While you may have done the necessary research into your target niche, poured hours into sketching your customer avatar, and have a gut feeling, until you actually test your software by putting it in front of the right people, you just cannot be certain you have a winner.

 

Creating an MVP strategy can help—but what exactly is MVP development and how should you embrace it as you refine your big idea?

 

What is MVP Development and Should I Use This Strategy?

 

An acronym for Minimum Viable Product, an MVP is a material manifestation of your software concept in its most basic form, to see if it is feasible or fundable, or both. As you might be able to tell, the MVP meaning does not stray too far from the literal—essentially referring to the most barebones construction needed in order to test whether your product can, indeed, work.


The primary purpose of MVP software development is to test your concept out on a real, targeted audience to see how it holds up, as well as identify what needs to be changed. If realized effectively, this can be a crucial step in an iterative development process that will allow you to garner the right kind of feedback about the relationship between your software and its future users.


Beyond this direct feedback loop, it can also be an excellent way to secure funding. A tangible prototype will demonstrate to potential funders that you’ve already invested some of your own blood, sweat, and tears into your dream product.  You will also be able to show how many customers that you have and other analytics like unique visitors/month.


MVP Software Development has been used by a host of successful enterprises from Dropbox to Uber and—alongside prototyping and constructing proofs of concepts—is touted as being an integral element of development research and testing. Because it does not require the complete construction of your end product, it can be a cost-effective way to obtain a deeper understanding of your software.

 

Advantages of using MVP Software Development

 

Perhaps the greatest advantage of MVP software development is that it allows you to involve your customers early in the development process. That means you will be genuinely responding to a real-life need for your software, rather than simply imagining what fissure your solution might fill.


MVP Development can be a cost-effective way to help you answer the following questions:


  1. Is the concept feasible? (Yes, you can get a simple Yes/No answer to this all-important question.)

  2. Are there bugs that need to be fixed?

  3. What risks are involved in the development process?

  4. Is the feedback telling us that we should continue going down the same road, or do we need to change course?

  5. Can we get funding for this?

  6. Which features should be further developed and which can be tossed?



In addition to answering these all important questions, MVP development can help spur innovation—both in the form of responding to ideas that your target group gives you and by helping you see your concept in a new light.


If you are sold on the need to embrace MVP development, your next step is to figure out how to start.


We will outline your options below:

 

MVP strategies

 

Loosely, MVP strategies can be divided into the following two options:

 

1) MVP on the cheap

 

If you are looking to build an MVP in the most cost-effective way possible, you can design a product expressly for this purpose. Using this method, you develop a product quickly with the sole aim of showing investors and/or a target group of potential customers. If you are a non-technical founder, you can use a “no-code” framework for this purpose, but you will ultimately throw this framework away or spend a significant sum to rework it later. It’s an ephemeral approach to getting your concept out there to see if any fish will bite.


Pros:

  • Cost-effectiveness

  • Short term efficiency

  • Quick answers to questions of feasibility


Cons:

  • False sense of completion/security: Many founders will use this product well beyond its original intended usefulness and have to spend a ton of money down the line to redo most of the platform

  • Long term inefficiency: having to send your code off to the recycle bin once you get funding may leave you feeling as though you have wasted time

  • Potential for inaccuracy: by prioritizing speed, you may not truly reflect your concept

 

2) Build it with scale in mind

 

The next option is to build a solid foundation from the outset. A software architect can design a blueprint for your future product and help you to understand the tradeoffs of adding (or not) core building blocks. What you create will essentially be a lite version of your target software—but with a pared down features set.


Pros:

  • Architecturally sound: Allows you to build on top of what you have created while still gaining valuable customer insights

  • Accuracy: May reflect your ideas in a way that does justice to your concept

  • Customer-driven: Offers right subset of features to keep users satisfied and creates value for users with continuous feedback and improvement

  • Long term efficiency: Helps in preventing wastage of time, money and effort.


Cons:

  • More expensive (which may be problematic for startups that do not have sufficient starting capital)

  • More time consuming (as most things are when you do them properly)

 

Using MVP in an integrated testing approach

 

Regardless of the methodology you use within the MVP framework, it is important to understand that it can be a crucial element of how you realize your concept. Combined with constructing an initial proof of concept, as well as creating a prototype, an MVP strategy will quickly help you identify exactly what you have on your hands.  This is a powerful strategy you can deploy along with your software development company.

 

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