What is a Minimal Viable Product?
A Minimal Viable Product (MVP) has enough core features to test your business idea and attract early adopters to validate the idea, not the product.
Let’s assume you have an idea for a new web or mobile application. Even if you have already done your market research, gotten potential user feedback, and started building an early adopter email list, all you have is a set of assumptions.
- Does my application solve a real problem and not manufacture a problem?
- Is that problem painful enough for people to use the application to solve it?
- Will people pay for the application to solve the problem?
- Will people use the application the way I expect them to?
A well-executed MVP (Minimal Viable Product) can help you test your assumptions by quickly launching something to the market so real users can use it and provide immediate feedback.
Your MVP should include features that test the core of your business or product idea. Remember, everything you know right now is just an assumption, an assumption that needs to be tested quickly.
One way to determine which features to include is to create two feature buckets:
- Critical: Any feature essential to the core of your business and product idea. These features must test your assumptions about the problem, or they don’t solve the immediate problem you are trying to solve.
- Maybe Later: Any feature that is nice to have, could add value, improve user experience, or you’re uncertain if users will want it.
What you decide to put into these buckets will be up to you. Hopefully, you have done enough market research to understand your core users, created user personas, and competitive analysis. All the information you have gathered beforehand will help you sort the features.
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Remember, you are testing your idea assumptions quickly to improve the product, the idea, or pivot the business idea.