In the words of Eric Ries, an American entrepreneur, blogger, and the author of the book The Lean Startup: “A Minimum Viable Product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”
Yes, it holds true in the case of today’s startups because they have to validate their learning through experiments and build minimum viable product (MVP) in order to get through the build-measure-learn feedback loop quickly without any hassle.
As you know, an MVP is a preliminary functioning version of a product with limited features and lots of room for improvement. For building an MVP, it is mandatory for a startup to partner with efficient software development companies. But before that, let’s take a look at the eight crucial benefits of creating an MVP for your startup.
- Narrows Down The Focus To The Core Value Proposition
An MVP allows startup geeks to define their value proposition clearly and narrowly. It becomes a lot easier for them to identify their major goals and needed functionality. Also, they can make better informed decisions and formulate a strategy to spend their time and money efficiently.
- It Saves Your Money & Time
By launching an MVP, the startup geeks and developers prevent themselves from investing a huge amount of time and money in building a finished product with all intended features. They have an option to test the minimum functional product in the market and see if people like it. An MVP is launched with the sole intention to see if the core proposition is capable to catch the attention of potential contributors and investors.
- Identify Critical Setbacks & Find Their Respective Solutions
With the help of an MVP, startups can identify the possible issues in the initial stages of the product development and can resolve them then and there so that to avoid any future complications and save their precious money and time. It helps you in confirming that all the functions work properly together before eventually launching the end product in the market.
- Minimizes Remakes
MVP gives an idea of what features and working and what not so that the startup geeks can formulate a strategy to build the solution accordingly. This will help them in minimizing any remakes in the future and launch an enhanced version of product in the market.
- Getting Feedback & Building A Healthy Relationship With Customers
When working to create a finished product, the opinion of your target customers is most significant. After creating a product prototype, when you build an MVP that is fully loaded with all the core features, it becomes mandatory for you to test it with the target initial customers. They can use the MVP and give their valuable feedback that you can incorporate in order to improvise the end product.
Building and testing an MVP also gives startups a chance to build a healthy relationship with their end customers. When users will see that you are incorporating their feedback efficiently in order to enhance the end product, they will be happy and will feel that they are valuable for your brand.
- Helps To Spend Money Efficiently
Due to the iterative nature of the product development cycles, there is no need for the startups to look for a huge amount of money at once. Over the time they can decide to spend their own money in the way they want. Also, they can spend someone else’s money as and when required.
- It Helps You To Test Your Marketing Strategies
In order to make a successful product, it is mandatory for a startup to formulate the best marketing and sales strategies so that to reach the right audience. Not only they need to invest their time, money, and resources in creating that product but they are also required to make it available for those who need it.
An MVP is a core proposition of your business idea, but with limited features, you get an opportunity to test your and your team’s marketing and sales policies for every cycle of the product development process. By using an MVP approach instead of presenting the finished product directly can help you in testing the effectiveness of the approach.
- Getting Soon To The Market
MVP reaches the market faster in comparison if you decided to launch the fully functional product directly. With the help of an MVP, the product gets to the disposal of the customers sooner and they give their valuable feedback. It helps you to make modifications and adjustments faster and update the product in accordance with the specific requirements of the customers.
If your product gets to the market sooner than your opponent means that you are available for your clients and you stand a chance to win that competitive edge that can take your startup to another level altogether.
Also Read: Best Marketing Tools For Startups
Thus, MVP allows startups to get timely feedback from their potential clients and investors. The startups can then transform the most interesting and unique suggestions into new features so that to make the end product as efficient as possible. This is enough for your clients to get a hint that you and your product are here in the market to stay.