6 Steps to Build Your MVP the Right Way

A rapidly changing technology and the economy has paved the way for entrepreneurship. Knowledge and information are now available at your fingertips. You are still apprehensive to put your concept forward and watch it take shape. You have this natural fear – the humongous amount of risk involved in bringing a new product to market.

However, what if we say there is no reason to worry?

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) could be an ideal solution to reduce the risks of launching a new product to market. The process of developing an MVP does include a few pitfalls associated with it. We put forth a step-by-step guide on how to build an MVP, the right way.

Step 1: Analyse the market and target audience

Evaluate your business or product idea with respect to the market and the users or customers. Find out if your idea fulfils the market needs. Surveys help to find out what the market wants, the odds of success of your idea or product, and other basic information that you may require. Two simple questions to ask – Is there a need for this product? So how can it help?

Step 2: Analyse your competitors

No matter what your product idea is, competitor analysis is mandatory. Always watch out for the number of competitors you will have to outperform. Analysing your competitors and finding out the existence of similar products in the market will help you make your product unique. The market has many tools today that you can use to inspect your competitor’s apps or sites to gather the insights required. Analysing customer feedback of your competitors also helps in addressing your product specifications and shortcomings better.

Step 3: Express your idea

Once you have taken care of the above two steps, comes the time to express your idea and put it on paper. Be as clear as possible and make essential estimates for your product. As the name suggests, it is about introducing the value of your product. Outline all the values and based on them develop an MVP.  

Step 4: Define the process and user flow

It is important to decide and design the stages of the process, which explains the steps to reach the final objective or the primary goal of your product. Start by thinking about the user flow. Focus on the essential tasks rather than going into detailed or complicated features of your product. Design it to make it user-friendly. Don’t miss anything, always keeping in mind the shape of the final product and satisfaction of the users in mind.

Step 5: List essential features based on priority

List the features according to priority such as high, medium, and low. To categorize the features, ask questions – what do my customers want and what is that one necessary action needed to accomplish it. These would be your high priority features.

Next question – what are the added benefits offered?  Include this in the list of medium priority features.

Categorize all other features that still come to mind as nice-to-have or low priority features.

Step 6: Build your MVP, measure customer feedback, and improvise

Once all the features are prioritized and listed, it is time to define the scope of your first version of the product. You can even create a prototype of your product. After defining the scope, slowly move to the development stage. Build the basic version and release it to the market. Now, the MVP needs to be tested by the early adopters. Scrutinize the reaction of the first-time users, determine their feedback, and analyse all the pros and cons related to it. Then, start improvising your product based on the feedback and market need.

The process of building, measuring and learning should go on until the product is ready to be released into the wider market spectrum.

It is all about brainstorming, planning, developing, and testing your product within a reliable timeframe. If done in the right way, you can efficiently maximize the value of your product and market it efficiently.