You can’t just ask customer what they want and then try to give it them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.

Steve Jobs

First, what is minimum viable product (MVP)? You can easily find great amount of definitions in Google. If we turn to Wikipedia, it says: “MVP is a product with just enough features to gather validated learning about the product and its continued development”. Therefore, we want to talk about why MVP is so important. It allows obtaining the maximal amount of validated learning about customers with minimal efforts. If you have an idea and want to check it straight away then you need an MVP.

 MVP for car is bicycle, but they are different. You cannot make a car from proof-of-concept bicycle. 

This picture created by Henrik Kniberg perfectly illustrates the concept of MVP. MVP is not part of the car like a wheel, that can’t bring any value while using it on stand-alone basis. MVP assumes having a product with some basic features that can already be used, like a skateboard. It does not guarantee that a customer will be happy straight away, but it allows adding more features in the future. The thing is that you add value at each stage and keep modifying the solution, until you have happy customer using your final product.

Please use your MVP for purpose. Launch it like an app. Know metrics that you want to track and targets that you want to reach.

You can spend huge amount of resources and energy with no results or you can experiment and learn from your potential users. Many projects fail, when the product is completely done without getting any feedback from potential users. MVP is an app that one can use already, but with some limited features. MVP contains idea, technical plan of implementation and understanding of who your target market is and what key metrics have to be estimated.

Restrict yourself from adding more features to an app, but feel free to exclude everything, which isn’t important.

The main idea of MVP is not to make your app too complicated, but to test its basic concept. Basic concept means it requires little time and effort to create it. The set of features should be as small as possible in order to avoid waste of resources, like time and money, and at the same time to give an opportunity to learn from your potential customers.

 Join forces with your team to reach close and understandable target.

Obviously, it is a good thing to be a dreamer, but for a start, you need to set close and understandable targets. You should see a real and achievable way of your product launch and determine key indicators like certain amount of visitors or conversion rate, that will show your project viability.

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