A minimum viable product (MVP) is a development strategy in which a new product is developed with sufficient features to satisfy early users. The final, complete set of features is only designed and developed after considering feedback from the product’s initial users.
Generally speaking, the minimum viable product is the first version of a mobile application or a website, which has only the crucial features that reflect the core idea of your startup. As your user base grows, so does your product. It means that you’re not burdened with hard-to-implement features until you have an audience that needs them.
For better understanding, we have a great example for you to compare the outcomes of different strategies.
How does minimum viable product strategy work in real life?
One sunny day, three friends — Michelle, Sue, and Wendy — were sitting at Brian’s bakery. Inspired by Brian’s recent success, they decided to pursue their dream of starting their own online flower delivery business. While each of these girls had enough resources to launch a startup, all of them had different ideas on how to turn their vision into a successful business. After spending hours arguing, they decided to part ways, each using a different approach to start an online flower delivery service.
Week 1 — Launching the startup
Much like other entrepreneurs, each girl wanted to have all their ideas implemented at once.
Michelle signed a development contract with a huge company owned by a friend of her husband. They set up a series of interviews to discover all her dreams regarding the flower delivery app.
Sue opted for a fast and cheap development project with a well-known app development firm. She was quite happy with the low price tag for a relatively big feature set. However, Sue forgot the adage “you get what you pay for”, and soon enough, she faced mounting barriers and issues with the service.
Wendy contacted DB Best development team to launch her startup. Together, they decided to build the minimum viable product (MVP) on a reliable and scalable platform. Their main goal was to bring the idea to market as soon as possible and to implement additional features as the application was upgraded.
Week 2 — Business Analysis
Michelle was super excited. Every other day she envisioned new application features, while her Project Manager was carefully listening, documenting, and estimating her ideas.
Sue tried to explain the application features to the developer. The fast and cheap process that she expected initially didn’t look quick but seemed to be very dirty.
Wendy, together with the DB Best development team chose the best cloud platform for her application which considered the required scalability to meet expected application growth in the future. This choice became the first brick at the groundwork of the application architecture.
Technical background is vitally important for the first step
The DB Best team’s technical background and experience in delivering successful products to market make us the ideal partner to help build your product. When your app rises in the app store, you can be sure that the MVP will be scalable, highly available and will survive a heavy load. In starting your business you need to make sure that the initial app architecture meets the latest industry standards and requirements and that’s what we specialize in.
Here at DB Best, we are always looking to make the lives of our customers easier. Providing the full cycle of application development services, we guarantee that your product will meet all quality assurance requirements. Our goal is to make sure you never have to worry about anything other than starting your business.
Week 3 — Technical implementation
Michelle opened her store, New Horizons, as she continued to spend money recklessly. She ordered a new logo at the design agency and hired content managers for her Facebook page. However, she hasn’t even created this page.
Sue received the first fast and cheap application draft for a review. However, instead of flowers in her online shop, the application was filled up with automotive parts.
Wendy received the admin rights and began setting up her iOS application. The app included only some basic features. Nonetheless, it was really easy to manage. And the quality assurance, crucial to ensure enjoyable customer experience, was a breeze for Wendy.
Should you cover multiple platforms?
Of course, you want a website and both iOS and Android applications to reach all customers in your area. And this brings an impressive price tag, which can often be too heavy at the start of the project. The MVP development technique recommends starting with just one platform. Remember when Instagram came to the market and it was available only to the iOS users? Eventually, you will build the applications for other platforms. An iOS or Android app is enough to start your business!
Week 4 — Releasing the applications
Michelle finally started developing iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Symbian applications. Also, she tried to launch a website. She desperately lacked time to provide feedback to her Project Manager for all these developments running simultaneously.
Sue managed to release her mobile applications for iOS and Android. She accepted the fact that the major part of the application is now related to the car parts, she now dreamed of expanding the sales amongst her male audience. The application itself was mostly hardcoded, so she couldn’t make any changes to its logic or design.
Wendy’s app became a hit on the App Store. She backed the release with targeted ads and her application quickly reached the first thousand downloads. With this impressive amount of users in the first week, she was able to gather the feedback based on real user experiences rather than her dreams or ideas.
Marketing is critical
One of the most common startup mistakes that we’ve witnessed is the lack of marketing activities. You really need to put your idea in front of the customer’s eyes or even inside their brains. People won’t download your app just because you’ve published it on the App Store.
Week 5 — Maintenance and support
Michelle was ready to launch her applications. However, she had to pay the bills…
Sue received negative feedback and her app rankings dropped. However, Sue couldn’t do anything about it, because the application architecture didn’t allow changes to the user interface. And no maintenance or support was available from her ‘quick-and-dirty’ developer.
Wendy was already running a successful business of her own. She implemented the most demanded features as part of the application updates. Being in touch with the development team, she planned to release the Android application soon.
When should you stop on the process of development?
Application development process never ends. You need to constantly update your app, bringing new features and improving the usability. So, in order to constantly bring your business to the new level, you should take advantage of the the ongoing application development.
Week 6 — Profit
Michelle went bankrupt. Oops, that was awkward. When you run out of funds, you end up with nothing. So, it’s better to consider MVP as the startup application development strategy from the start.
Sue decided to quit her business. She was lucky to sell her flowers and car parts delivery applications to realize a return on part of her investment.
Wendy was feeling gorgeous. She sold the franchise and was even thinking about how to compete with Amazon and eBay with her updated flower delivery application.
Start building your application
If you’re dreaming of a successful startup, DB Best can help turn your dream into reality. We can help you develop an app prototype to raise funding, meet industry requirements, and deliver the app to the App Store and Google Play within a short period of time. We can’t wait to work with you, so contact DB Best to get a free estimate right now, and start building your amazing MVP project.
