Introducing a new product to the market without first testing it in real-world conditions can be a fast track to failure, leaving you with months of wasted effort and expenses with little to show for it.
Building a minimum viable product offers a less risky path. It involves creating a rudimentary version of your product, putting it in front of real-world users, and testing your assumptions before developing and launching the full version.
Read below to explore what a minimum viable product is, the benefits of building one, and a simple framework for how to build one.
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What Is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?
A minimum viable product (MVP) is a stripped-down version of a final product that provides just enough functionality to solve the problem it was intended for. MVPs deliver enough core value to satisfy early adopters, validate assumptions, and gather meaningful feedback from real users.
For example, the first cell phone prototypes were far removed from what they are today — they only tested the idea and capabilities of cellular communications, which is the core function of the cell phone.
Why Are MVPs Important?
Building a minimum viable product, a critical stage of prototype development, provides a plethora of unique benefits. These include:
- Rapid validation of ideas: MVP feedback forces design teams to test assumptions and refine their product’s core value proposition with data from real-world usage scenarios. Customers are likely to be brutally honest about what the product does well, what it doesn’t, and whether it solves their problem.
- Increased cost efficiency: Testing a product idea as an MVP can save months or years of investment in a product or feature that users don’t want. There are upfront costs for developing an MVP, but the cost of failure is still significantly lower than if you launched with a fully developed product. You can iterate or scrap the idea based on feedback without expenses ballooning out of control.
- Faster time-to-market: Focusing only on the most essential features can let you launch your product ahead of competitors, giving you an edge by capturing early adopters, collecting usage data, and building a recognizable brand in the space before anyone else does.
- Increased likelihood of attracting investors: A tried-and-tested minimum viable product can serve as proof that a product idea has the potential to succeed in the market, a critical factor in securing funding rounds.
The Minimum Viable Product Framework: How To Develop an MVP
Building an MVP is one of the most important aspects of introducing a new product. A structured approach to MVP development can help you capture all the benefits, set yourself apart from the competition, and increase your chances of success when you hit the market with your full product.
1. Define the Problem, Target Market, and Core Value Proposition
Start with the fundamentals — identify a consumer audience and pinpoint a problem that they have. Don’t work with assumptions. Only work with what real people actually tell you.
Steps you can take to do this include:
- Conducting surveys
- Hosting interviews
- Testing ideas with focus groups
- Commissioning research
Taking these steps will help you validate your most fundamental ideas, including whether the problem exists at all and whether the target audience would be willing to pay for a solution. This data can set you up for success as you start fleshing out your product idea.
2. Identify and Study the Competition
Very few product ideas exist in a vacuum. If you are thinking about a product idea, chances are others have tested similar ideas. The likelihood is high that other products already exist to solve the same or adjacent problems.
You’ll want to conduct a competitive analysis, answering the following questions for each competing product:
- Is this product a direct or indirect competitor?
- What features does it have?
- How is it produced, and what technology does it incorporate?
- What are its strengths and weaknesses?
- What is the product’s core differentiating factor?
- What are the highlights and pain points of the product’s user experience?
- How is this product positioned (pricing, messaging, target audience, etc.)?
- What do users actually say about the product (via reviews, social media, etc.)?
Answering these questions early in the MVP development process helps you sharpen your differentiation, avoid repeating design mistakes, and build something that is tangibly better than competing products. It can also help you pinpoint a hyper-specific gap that your product idea can fill.
3. Build a Product Requirements Document (PRD)
A product requirements document (PRD) is a comprehensive document that outlines a product’s key functionality, features, and specifications. It aligns all key stakeholders (including designers, engineers, and manufacturers) throughout the product development process.
Writing a PRD is an involved, but fairly straightforward process. The table below outlines what your PRD should account for.
| Key Product Design Considerations | |
|---|---|
| Element | Examples |
| Product design factors | Features, user experience, and branding |
| Positioning factors | Purpose, target market, and any other market-specific considerations |
| Technical factors | Required materials, desired production methods, and shipping constraints |
| Universal need-to-knows | Design cost constraints, product development timelines, and regulatory considerations |
You should also lay out specific KPIs that will ultimately determine whether your MVP succeeds or fails. What they are will depend heavily on your product and business model, but some good universal metrics to track are net promoter score, conversion rate, and customer retention rate.
4. Product Design
With your product idea fully refined, you can begin the design process by developing and manufacturing prototypes. The cost to build a prototype can be high, especially if you’re making a complex product; however, this is a necessary step to reach a minimum viable product.
Prototype development is a progressive process — you start with the most basic, elemental forms and gradually increase fidelity until you reach a representative MVP. There are many different types of prototypes, broken down as follows:
- Early prototypes: Low-fidelity concepts, such as sketches, diagrams, and mockups
- Middle prototypes: Mid-fidelity prototypes, such as wireframes, digital mockups, and video prototypes
- Late prototypes: High-fidelity, near-production prototypes, like a minimum viable product, working model, or functional prototype
Advancing through the stages of prototyping requires testing and validating each one, collating the data, and iterating based on your findings. Testing should be conducted both internally and externally to get a wide range of inputs. Elements to test for include:
- Ergonomics: How well the product fits the physical and cognitive needs of the user, emphasizing comfort and efficiency
- User experience: How the user interacts with the product, including what they feel about it, how they perceive it, and what they like or dislike about it
- Aesthetics: If the product aligns with user preferences and brand identity, and if it’s perceived as visually appealing
- Functionality: Whether or not the product solves the problem it was made for
- Manufacturability: Whether or not the product can be mass-produced without incurring unsustainable costs
The minimum viable product should be the culmination of all of your tests and iterations, having been improved and refined as much as possible without adding any excess features.
5. Launch and Refine
With your minimum viable product fully completed, you can start producing it at scale and launch it to the intended customer base. Typical activities at this stage of the product management lifecycle include reviewing your go-to-market strategy, finalizing internal alignment, and setting up manufacturing and logistics.
The last and most important part of the minimum viable product framework is collecting as much data as possible on how the market is receiving your product. Ground your success/failure determination in the KPIs you established in Step 2, but don’t narrow your data collection to only those metrics and indicators.
The more context and information you have, the better you can understand how to refine and evolve the MVP as you build the full product.
Develop an MVP with a Trusted Product Design Agency
Building a minimum viable product is a lot of work and requires a confluence of design, engineering, and manufacturing expertise to reach the end goal. If you don’t know where to start, consider working with a full-service design agency like StudioRed.
Our team offers over 40 years of product design experience across industries ranging from consumer electronics to biomedical technology. We have the knowledge and resources to help you develop prototypes and iterate until you have an MVP that meets your exact criteria.
Ready to get started? Contact us to learn more about our services and how we can help you create an ideal MVP.
Minimum Viable Product FAQ
Below are answers to some of the most common questions asked when developing a minimum viable product.
What Is Considered a Minimum Viable Product?
“Minimum viable product” strictly refers to a version of a product that includes only the features needed to deliver the core value to users.
What Is The Main Purpose of a Minimum Viable Product?
The main purpose of an MVP is to validate the product idea with real users before committing all of the resources needed to build and release the final product.
What Is the Difference Between a Minimum Viable Product and Proof of Concept?
Proof of concept is an exercise to determine whether a product idea or technology is actually feasible — it’s conducted internally and doesn’t involve end users. A minimum viable product is a functional product built for external users.
