Benefits of Building an MVP For Your Digital Venture

The Wright Brothers didn’t invent the first airplane because they were the best funded or even the most intelligent. They succeeded faster than any other company because they understood the benefits of building a minimum viable product to test out their venture.

In any software development project using modern methodologies, like Agile, an MVP validates the viability of the effort with a minimal outlay of resources. It serves as an insurance policy against wasting significant dollars and time on an initiative with little hope of success. 

Other companies were taking complete airplane designs and building expensive first efforts, only to lose their prototypes in costly crashes. The Wright Brothers started by putting wings on a bicycle, gained immediate feedback, and slowly built out their MVP from there.

Software projects fail for a variety of reasons, but those failures become more costly when they happen after deployment. After all, it costs significantly more to repair issues discovered later in the initiative. This issue is a major reason for the popularity of Agile and its variants. 

With an eye on a successful mobile app or interactive website project, here are a few benefits of building an MVP as part of this effort. Understanding how to measure an MVP also helps your company’s next digital venture achieve its goals. In the end, following this approach prevents costly project failures, while ensuring a successful outcome. 

The Value of Timely User Feedback 

Crafting a minimum viable product generates the critical user feedback the project team needs to make enhancements to an app’s design and coding. When using an iterative project methodology, like Agile or Build-Measure-Learn, timely user feedback helps keep the project on track. Developers transform that feedback into the necessary changes to ensure the best possible product gets built. 

In projects following older methodologies, users typically don’t get access to the product until it’s close to deployment. Remember what we said about the higher costs of fixing issues towards the end of a project? Relevant and timely user feedback remains one of the biggest benefits of building an MVP. 

Using a Flashy MVP to Attract Funding 

An MVP sporting a well-designed user interface laden with sizzle serves nicely as a proof of concept for the final product. Use this POC to attract new investors to the project to provide critical seed feeding, making sure the best possible product hits the market. Include a detailed business plan, market strategy, and some user feedback to increase the chances of gaining new funding.

Focusing on a MVP Saves Time and Money

We previously talked about how an MVP determines the validity of a product concept before investing in its full development. This approach prevents businesses from wasting money on a poor product concept. However, for some products an MVP is actually able to generate real-world revenue. In this scenario, releasing it into the market before it’s fully complete saves time while potentially earning money. Use the rest of the project lifecycle for enhancements to ultimately build a more effective app or website.

Foster the Development of a Clean User Interface 

When building an MVP, the project team sometimes focuses on designing a minimalist user interface with only the screen elements necessary for a functional app. Of course, this is also a good principle to follow for the final product. Trying to fit as much functionality as possible into a mobile app can lead to a bloated design. In this case, the MVP approach actually leads to a right-sized UI that’s more usable as a result.  

Validate the Market for the Digital Venture 

In some cases, building an MVP helps to validate an app’s design or user interface. However, this same approach also serves to verify the existence of a market for the app. In this scenario, deploying a MVP on the App Store or Google Play provides useful metrics to determine whether the digital venture boasts a chance to truly make an impact in the marketplace. 

Additionally, these metrics also help to better identify what different user demographics are more engaged with the app. This valuable information informs the types of enhancements to be developed in future project iterations.

Making QA and Testing a Critical Part of The Project Lifecycle 

In software development projects using older methodologies, QA tended to be one of the final phases. We previously mentioned the risks associated with this approach, considering the relatively high costs of fixing any problems at this point of a project. 

When building an MVP as part of an iterative methodology, QA happens throughout the project. It ensures any bugs, design issues, and clumsy UI elements are discovered and fixed at the most cost-effective time. Ultimately, it’s the right approach for any streamlined and efficient software development initiative.

If your company wants some advice on turning a great product idea into a successful digital venture, connect with the team at NineTwoThree. Well-experienced in mobile and web development as well as modern software methodologies, we provide the critical know-how to ensure a successful project outcome. 

Reach out to us at your earliest convenience. Let’s discuss your ideas and together we’ll develop a plan for the future!