Product design professionals know that this is a highly competitive area that demands constant innovation. In this sense, knowing approaches such as the Minimum Viable Product ( MVP ) is a differentiator, as well as essential for optimizing the creation process and increasing the chances of success when officially launching the product on the market.
This is a methodology that allows you to validate ideas when creating products quickly and in a resource-saving manner. Tests are carried out and valuable feedback is collected before making more substantial investments in development and launch.
In this article, you will find a guide to Minimum Viable Product, including what MVP is, its importance for product design, the main steps to create it, and the mistakes to avoid in the process. Happy reading!
What is Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?
Minimum Viable Product ( MVP) is an approach used in product creation. It is also used as part of Product Discovery to validate hypotheses and obtain feedback on a potential product idea . All this involves the least possible resources and expenses.
Thus, the MVP is a first version of this product. It is created why choose our service? with the objective of testing the performance of basic functionalities and collecting feedback regarding the value proposition in the market.
The concept of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) dates back to 2001, when it was created by Frank Robinson, CEO of SyncDev. However, the term gained popularity with the book Lean Startup, written by Eric Ries in 2011.
How important is MVP in the product development process?
The Minimum Viable Product is an important strategy because it allows product professionals to quickly test in the market and collect valuable feedback before officially launching a product.
The MVP generates insights from an initial version of the product with its essential features . This allows us to know whether it really meets the needs of the end user.
This way, the company gets a return on the viability of the idea without having to make large investments. This saves time and money, as well as minimizing the chances of errors.
With the feedback generated by testing, product designers and UX designers can still make adjustments and improve features. This way, they ensure that the official version of the product is as close as possible to what users really want.
What are the advantages of an MVP?
The Minimum Viable Product provides some advantages in product creation, such as:
rapid validation : the MVP allows you to test your idea in the product market and with your target audience, validating it before even making larger investments;
immediate feedback : it is possible to collect feedback from potential users in real time, which will help in the development of the final product with the minimum of errors;
cost reduction : the MVP is launched with only the main features of the product, with a low initial cost, directing resources to what really matters for testing;
agility in launching : with MVP you put a functional version on the market more quickly, which can result in a competitive advantage;
continuous iteration : with user experience feedback, implementing improvements in real time is facilitated;
risk minimization : the functional version of the product involves less expense and, consequently, less risk, in addition to allowing strategic modifications to the final version to avoid failures;
attracting investments : with a validated MVP, convincing potential investors and stakeholders of the relevance of the project becomes much easier, since they can test all the functionalities first-hand and validate them.