How to Build an MVP for Your Project
Tags: MVP, Startup, Product Development, Software Development Comp, Mvp Development

5 Steps to Create a Perfect MVP

Describe your idea

MVP development is often hampered when customers come without a ready-made plan for their future product. The software development team will, of course, draw up requirements, but it’s better to prepare a basic vision that is easier to estimate. You know, only you can tell what you want. So starting with the goal of your product is the best way to create an MVP. Think about the problem that your product will solve. Your task is to describe in one sentence what this product is for and what its main value is.

For example, you want to develop a mobile app for farmers because you know that it will help them create some kind of professional community. What problem does your product solve? Probably, the problem of finding partners and exchanging experience in the agricultural business. So we can say that your mobile app is a professional social network that unites farmers throughout the world and helps them to exchange experience, establish partnerships, and get to know each other.

A description like this is the starting point in your work because it answers the main questions of what your product is and why someone needs it.

2. Analyze your target audience and competitors

Why should you do this? MVP is a concept for those who want to create a really good product for their audiences. How can you do this without knowing your potential buyers and competitors? Having carried out such an analysis once or twice, you have data that will be useful to you at the development stage as well as at the stages of launching, testing, and improving the product. So don’t ignore this step.

Start with a target audience. Target audience is your potential customers, that group of people who may be interested in your product. When you thought about what problem your product solves, you tried it on with your target audience. How to properly describe your potential users? There are several stages here.

General characteristics : gender, age, place of residence, profession, interests, problems, and values. Write down the key metrics that differentiate your target audience. If you work with a B2B market, describe the type of company, size, industry, and the challenges employees face in their operations.

: gender, age, place of residence, profession, interests, problems, and values. Write down the key metrics that differentiate your target audience. If you work with a B2B market, describe the type of company, size, industry, and the challenges employees face in their operations. Segmenting and narrowing the target audience. The profile of your future customers will be quite broad. For example, people from different professions, different ages. It’s difficult for you to find one solution for such many people with different interests and challenges. Therefore, you need to divide them into groups according to the characteristic that can most affect the way your product develops.

For example, while creating a CRM system for financial institutions, you understand that your potential buyers are banks, insurance, and leasing companies, each with their own tasks and challenges. Having described these segments, you choose the one that will be the most profitable for you and make a product for the needs of this narrow target audience.

Describe an ideal customer profile (ICP) from your chosen segment. Imagine that you are communicating with your client live and offering your product. Describe it in as much detail as possible, paying special attention to what this person would like to see in your product.

As for competitors, explore 5–10 products that can solve the same user problems that you are going to solve. Pay attention to functionality, marketing, usability to choose the best features for your product, and not repeat other company’s mistakes.

3. Create the user flow

To understand what functionality your product should have, you need to imagine yourself in the user’s place and walk his way. User flow is the path that a user takes when interacting with a product. It should be logical and understandable. The user must know what to do to proceed to the next step. It’s the user journey map that will help you form detailed and clear requirements for the development team.

You can create a user flow as a regular diagram or more visually using additional tools such as Wireflow, Timblee, Draw.io, and others. User Flow is based on the order of actions that the user must perform. User Flow helps you understand whether all processes in the product are logical. By looking at the user flow, a development team can immediately see what is the essence of the solution that the product offers.

User Flow example that shows the steps involved in submitting a job application

Source: Visual Paradigm

4. Make a list of features and prioritize them

That’s it, the key part of your work for creating a perfect MVP. Having dealt with the user flow, you will understand what features are required for your product. List them in a table and prioritize using categories such as high priority, medium priority, and low priority.

High priority — are fundamental functions without which your app or platform simply can’t work.

— are fundamental functions without which your app or platform simply can’t work. Medium priority — functions that you’d like to have, but they are auxiliary and don’t require priority development.

— functions that you’d like to have, but they are auxiliary and don’t require priority development. Low priority — here can be your “killer-features”, the unique properties of your product that differentiates it from the rest, but such functions are difficult to develop and they require additional study of user experience. If you are sure what exactly “killer-features” are needed for your product, you can classify them as a medium and high priority. Anyway, low priority functions are those that are not mandatory and that you are not completely sure about.

For example, you are about to develop a mobile app for searching for a restaurant nearby. Among the high priority functions will be the creation of a catalog of restaurants with their contacts, user interface, integration with the map. Medium priority functions can be a table reservations form or push notification. And low-priority is the creation of a personal account or some special offers.

To visualize the functions, you can create a matrix based on the user flow where you have a horizontal row showing the main stages of your user flow and under each stage a series of functions dedicated to that stage. Then draw a vertical arrow going down from “high priority” at the top of the column to “low priority” at the bottom.