If you’ve had to lead any digital or product design projects recently, then you’ll probably have come across the term ‘MVP’ or ‘Minimum Viable Product’.
But do you know where the concept came from?
According to Aha!, the term ‘Minimum Viable Product’ was coined by technology CEO Frank Robinson in 2001, born of the idea that product and customer development should happen in parallel. Years later, Eric Reis and Steve Blank further developed the MVP concept as part of the lean startup methodology. Many of us already know that this very much focuses on experimentation, customer feedback and iterative development.
What is a Minimum Viable Product?
So, what exactly is a Minimum Viable Product in today’s world?
According to Gartner, “A minimum viable product (MVP) is the release of a new product (or a major new feature) that is used to validate customer needs and demands prior to developing a more fully featured product. To reduce development time and effort, an MVP includes only the minimum capabilities required to be a viable customer solution.”
So far, so good. This appears to align with Robinson’s original thinking that a product should be developed in parallel with customer feedback and, like the lean startup approach, it should focus on iteration in order to save time and resources.
Interestingly, however, Y Combinator makes an important point that the MVP is not actually a product, but a process. And by testing assumptions and gathering customer feedback in this process, you very often find yourself ‘back at the drawing board’ a number of times before you hit on the right product (as demonstrated in the diagram below).
It’s something we’ll look into in more detail now as we explore how MVPs can be used for digital product development.
Why is it important to develop an MVP for digital products?
With its focus on experimentation and lean iteration, the MVP approach is perfect for building and launching digital products. In many ways, it is very similar to the Design Sprint that’s often used for innovating and building digital products rapidly.
There are a number of business benefits inherent in the MVP process, making it a critical approach for digital product development:
Validate the concept – MVPs allow your team to test the idea in market with minimal investment. Launching a simplified or ‘lean’ version allows you to gather feedback, validate assumptions and, crucially, ensure there is enough demand for the product or feature itself. This is something that’s extremely important for digital teams accustomed to receiving lots of internal requests for new features!
Reduce development costs – The MVP approach impels you to focus on core features and functionalities, rather than get distracted by those ‘nice-to-haves’. Validating these before building out the full product can save thousands in development costs.
Iterate development – The core of the MVP process is iteration – the task of continuously gathering feedback and making improvements based on user responses. This approach increases the likelihood of building a full product that meets user needs and achieves market fit.
Mitigate risk – Testing the product early on allows your team to identify issues, challenges or gaps in the product. Following this path allows you to ‘pivot’ if the feedback doesn’t prove the need for that feature or product.
Launch early – Even with a ‘lean’ version of the product or feature, this enables your business to gain a competitive advantage, ensuring other companies don’t launch in the time it could take you to build out a full product. The customer feedback approach also allows you to grow an engaged audience and following before launching the full product.
Examples of MVP products
Not many people know that some of the biggest and most successful tech companies started off with an MVP. Here are just three examples to inspire and motivate your team!
Dropbox started out as a demo video MVP that Drew Houston, founder and CEO, launched to a small, niche audience. As TechCrunch explained, “To avoid the risk of waking up after years of development with a product nobody wanted, Drew did something unexpectedly easy: he made a video.”
Buffer launched with a series of landing pages, the first of these seen above that was shared on Twitter and that garnered an initial positive reaction from potential customers. From here, the founder tested out the pricing, launching another landing page to see what people were comfortable paying. The rest, as they say, is history, but it did, in the founder’s own words, include a lot of “course-correction.”
AngelList started from a set of very simple email intros to investors, using the founders’ broad network of contacts. Tellingly, the founder, Naval Ravikant, sees AngelList as a verb rather than a noun, describing it much like the MVP as “a methodology – a way of building and experimenting that manifests commercial enterprises.”
How to develop an MVP – a step-by-step guide
The specific steps and tasks you follow to develop your MVP can vary depending on your product and industry. However, by and large, the below phases are what your team should follow to ensure you reap the greatest benefits from the MVP approach.
Define your idea – When defining your initial idea and hypothesis, try and avoid ‘solutionising’. Instead, define the problem in more detail and capture why this is a problem and who it belongs to (your target market niche). You should also clearly articulate your vision and goals. These will typically stem from your wider digital product strategy.
Analyse the market – Having defined the problem, you now need to validate it with your target market. Use this research to refine the issue and your specific target audience niche.
Prioritise the core features – Don’t boil the ocean! Be sure to prioritise the features that will provide the most value to your users. Out of this, identify the outline of a ‘solution’ that you’ll be developing as your MVP.
Build and launch a prototype – Depending on the ‘solution’, your next step will be to develop a basic prototype or wireframe. This could be as simple as a landing page (as we saw with Buffer), or it could be an additional feature of an existing product you already have. It’s important to remember here that this doesn’t have to be ‘scalable’ – prototypes often involve a lot of manual work in the background before you spend too much time and resources building out fully automated and digital processes.
Collect and analyse feedback – Possibly your most important step! Share the prototype with your potential users (ideally those you’ve done the initial market analysis with). Here’s a tip – don’t just gather qualitative and quantitative feedback from them, also observe them as they use the product and note how they’re interacting with it during their user journey. Head here for more advice on how to reduce friction in your customer journey.
Profit – The road to profit isn’t quite as quick as the diagram above would suggest! As any digital team knows, the path to profit using the MVP approach looks something more like this:
Iterate and refine – Based on your user feedback and observations, make the necessary adjustments and improvements.
Relaunch and measure – Keep releasing updated versions to a limited (but potentially growing) audience, and keep monitoring their usage and gathering feedback.
Iterate and scale – Follow the above approach as often as needed until you feel confident enough to launch to bigger audiences and move towards a more comprehensive product.
The do’s and don’ts of MVP in product design
Here at Adrenalin, we use the MVP approach with a number of our clients to ensure product launches are as successful as possible. We’ve also picked up some do’s and don’ts along the way!
DO launch as soon as possible – Don’t get too attached to an idea or solution, the key is to develop the ‘minimum product’ and get feedback on it ASAP.
DO study how your customer uses the MVP and prototype – They won’t always verbalise their feedback so be on the lookout for subconscious things they are doing when interacting with your product.
DON’T add too many features – Too many features and you won’t be able to unpick what’s working and what’s not working. Plus, it will delay your launch.
DON’T throw it away – expect that some of your customers won’t like your MVP for whatever reason. That doesn’t mean you have to throw it away! Your job is to find out why they didn’t like it and how you can improve on it instead.
Essential MVP templates and resources
There are a wealth of tools and software apps available to develop your prototype and MVP. Here are our top ones that are easily accessible but also scalable!
For landing pages and web-based MVPs:
Unbounce – Not only perfect for building landing pages, Unbounce also has great analytics and AI features.
Leadpages – With its drag and drop functionality, Leadpages is extremely easy to use.
Bonus: be sure to check out How to design the ultimate landing page for conversions, for additional design tips and tricks!
For digital apps:
Bubble – A ‘no-code’ platform, Bubble is perfect for the non-techies in your team and works very like other marketing platforms.
Adalo – Another ‘no-code’ resource, Adalo also has some powerful integrations available for when you scale your MVP.
For prototypes and wireframes:
Figma – the ‘go-to’ for product managers and designers alike, Figma is great for sketching out basic or advanced design concepts.
Invision – Invision is primarily a whiteboard tool, but with its clickable components, it also functions well for prototypes and wireframes.
As you follow the MVP process, you’ll want to use design checklists and feedback surveys. Luckily, there are a host of great templates already available for download! Check out the links below for our favourites:
Having explored the benefits of the MVP approach and seen just how simple it can be nowadays with the wealth of tools and resources available, it’s not difficult to see why so many companies and digital teams adopt it. Using the MVP ‘process’ for digital products provides a cost-effective and efficient way to validate your idea, reduce development costs, iterate based on user feedback, mitigate risks, and gain an early foothold in the market. Remember though – the MVP process is iterative, so you should stay agile, flexible, and responsive to ensure that your digital product evolves to meet user needs and achieve product-market fit.
Adrenalin is a leading digital product and technology agency for Australia’s top brands and organisations. Stay informed about the latest digital product trends, strategies, and tactics by subscribing to the Adrenalin newsletter below.
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