Minimum Viable Product (also known as MVP) has become a standard for startups in recent years. Creating an MVP is a popular way of launching a business. And today, there are many companies that offer you their services in creating such products. Each MVP development agency will tell you that it is the best and the easiest way to start earning money with your startup. But is it indeed that easy?
Although launching an MVP can be the most straightforward strategy, it still requires some attention and thorough work. In this article, we are going to guide you through the five most essential steps needed to launch a perfect MVP.
- Conduct Market Analysis
Before launching any product, you obviously need to understand why you are creating this product. Who are the potential users and customers? To know the exact answers, you need to conduct market research. This analysis will tell you everything you need to succeed as an entrepreneur.
Although there are several methods of market research, the first question they answer is whether the market needs your product at all. You can start with a simple Google search. Further steps of the analysis include creating surveys that can be distributed among different people. It will allow you to understand, which exact features your potential users may need, and whether they are already using any products that match their needs.
However, you should remember that market analysis never ends. Even after launching an MVP and developing various other features, you need to continue the research. Pay increased attention to the feedback to know what your users expect from the product.
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- Conduct Customer Analysis
Customer research is another crucial step for launching a successful MVP. Once you know why you are creating a product, which features people may appreciate, you need to understand who is going to be your client. Who are your primary customers — male or female? Teens, students, adults? You need a portrait of your target audience to ensure that your product provides users with the best experience. The more detailed it is, the better.
Knowing the target audience will give you the answers to a variety of questions — from the name to UI/UX design ideas. Even though customer research may a bit overlap with the previous step, it is more user-oriented. If market research is about why your product may be popular, then customer analysis is about understanding who is going to use your product.
- Design a Roadmap
This step allows you to stay on track with product development. The roadmap will let both your team and your users understand which improvements you are going to make and when.
For users, a roadmap is crucial to know that the product is still maintained and has some plans for further development. You may have different roadmaps: one for the public gaze, which is less detailed, and one for the inner circle.
The second is far more important. Here, you need to thoroughly consider every step you are going to take before and after the release. Do you know which features you want to add? What are the main obstacles in their adding? When do you think these updates should be released? The roadmap will serve as a reference point. Thus, you will remember that there is no need to do everything at the same time.
- Organize a Testing
Since MVP is a viable product, it is crucial to ensure that it really works. To check this, you need high-quality testing. Of course, launching an MVP means you will continuously monitor users’ experience. But before offering your users anything, you need to be sure it works the way you designed it.
Experts name many ways of testing an MVP, each of them useful for different cases. Usually, the combination of several approaches works the best. Generally speaking, you need to check both “backend” and “frontend” parts of your product. If we talk about a mobile application, for example, this means checking all the parts of the code, commands users may give the app, etc. Also, you need to make sure that UI/UX design is user-friendly and intuitive, all the buttons work properly and links lead users where they should. Each product is unique, so testing should focus on different aspects, but remember to check everything that customers may click, see, use.
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- Make a Landing Page for the Product
The last but not the least part of the work behind a successful MVP is making people know about you. Indeed, it is an essential part of success, as you create your product for users.
A landing page is a powerful tool for digital marketing. It is the face of your product, something everyone will see when Googling this type of product. Thus, you need to create a landing page that will attract your customers and tell them everything they may want to ask about your product. The sharp design combined with easy-to-find information is critical for a high-performing landing page.
Also, you want your landing page to be easily found. That is why you need to consider some features of the popular search engines. In the text on your landing page, include the words your potential customers are likely to use when searching on the internet. It will help your product to be noticed.
In conclusion
Many companies offer MVP development services. Some of them also promise to take care of all the additional things, including those we just mentioned. However, if you want to understand how your business works, we highly recommend you not to rely on the companies entirely and do your own research on each step of launching your MVP.
We hope the above steps were useful for you, especially if you did not know where to start with your business idea.