Actionable steps to creating an MVP that’ll interest your customers
A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a development technique that’s been adopted in the new age of building companies, especially tech companies. It involves launching a new basic product or website with features sufficient enough to satisfy early adopters. The final or complete set of features is only designed and developed after considering feedback from the product’s initial users according to Techopedia.
As an entrepreneur or founder, there are a lot of risks you face in business, it is, therefore, your responsibility to ensure that you have a Minimum Viable Product that won’t fail when it’s introduced to your prospective audience. This is one of the most difficult tasks of an entrepreneur because your Minimum Viable Product can determine if you will continue or halt your entrepreneurial journey depending on your attitude and disposition.
The question now is what are the actionable steps to creating an MVP that users will find irresistible? We share some helpful tips.
Identify an actual problem
Any innovative, viable and scalable idea or product must be aimed at solving a particular societal problem. This will ensure that the idea won’t hit the rocks from the initial phase. No matter how fantastic your idea or product maybe, if it does not tackle a human problem; it will definitely fail. Before going further, ask three questions to figure out whether the path you’re heading down is a useful one: What problem is being solved? How is this product’s solution better than the competition? Is this an issue that occurs frequently enough to keep customers coming back? These questions are critical to a development process that will result in more than something that just seemed like a good idea at the time.
Identify how the product fits into users’ daily lives
While it isn’t possible to check out every single use case for a product before it’s released, there are ways to get an idea of what typical use might look like. Develop representations of a variety of users with their own stories surrounding when and how they use the product. Knowing what the user is doing with your product helps bring a project into focus and indicates which features will be useful in the final product and which can be scrapped or delayed for future versions.
Also Read: After hitting that fantastic business idea, these should be your next moves
Perform frequent A/B tests
Just because a product works well for developers doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to do the same for real-world users. As an entrepreneur starting out, you’re faced with lots of uncertainties, creating an MVP is what saves you a ton of problems, especially at the early stage.
And to avoid succumbing to unseen biases, perform A/B testing when possible to better capture customer preferences. A/B testing is a significant part of the Minimum Viable Product. It will help decide on which features, approach, design, and branding to be modified throughout multiple prototypes to best drive user behaviour and increase audience buy-in.
Consider the design process and user flow
Design the product in a way that is convenient for users. You need to look at the product from the user’s perspective, starting from opening the product to the final process, such as making a purchase or delivery. In addition, user flow is an important aspect as it ensures you do not miss anything while keeping the future product and its user satisfaction in mind. To define your user flow, it is necessary to define the process stages; and, for that, you need to explain the steps needed to reach the main objective.
Build your MVP
Once you have decided upon the main features and have learned about the market needs, you can then proceed to creating an MVP for your idea. Keep in mind that a prototype is not lower quality than a final product, and still needs to fulfil your customer’s needs. Therefore, it must be easy to use, engaging, and suitable for your users.
About the Author
Damilola Faustina is a writer and a public commentator, based in Lagos State, Nigeria. She’s contributed to several reputable platforms such as BizWatchNigeria, SaharaReporters and LegitNG.
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