Category: Product Development

Benefits of Building an MVP or Minimum Viable Product

Successful apps like Instagram, Snapchat, and Uber have something in common.

These apps started as something simple and then evolved into the apps they are now today. These mature apps went through years of product development and capital. A large investment and a lot of time is required to build successful apps such as these. This fact is often underestimated by people looking to build a highly successful app.

Since it takes so much to build highly successful app, you need from the start an MVP, or Minimum Viable Product. This is a version of your product which has the features to get the product to market that solves a problems users have. You want an app that brings value, but still have an app that doesn’t cost you a lot in developing the app.

The needs of the business, industry, and what competitors are up to will determine what your MVP is going to entail. In some cases, the features of the app may be complex as this is considered an industry standard. You have benefit to choosing this type of approach to app development.

MVP Benefits
A Set of Core Functionalities that test Business Concepts Early
When you have an MVP product version and get this into the market quickly, you can attest the concept of your business. You’ll be offering a core set of features, but not a full-blown product with lots of features. You can gather user information, test hypotheses, and get the product into the market fast. This helps keep costs down, but still gives you a functioning product.

Strengthen Your Business Case and Win Over Your Shareholders
The MVP is a version of a more complex and larger product you’ll offer later. When you have to add more features and need more resources, the cost of the app goes up. If you have an MVP, you’re able to demonstrate the validity of your product in the market so you can build a business case for more investment into product development. If you’re looking for more money from stakeholders, having an MVP product that is variable helps to strengthen your overall position.

Having an Iterative Process Allows you to Evolve Your Product
An MVP product offering allows you to go to the market with a product that has core functionality and features. When you do this, you’re able to build up a core user base and get insight into what is working and what is not working. Once you have this information, product teams can use that data to make business decisions on new iterations of the product. They will know what new features to add, what is going to help ROI, how to increase sales, and where money should be put into the budget.

Cost Efficiency
When you have a mature product, this is the result of many years of development, but the costs are high. If apps are created iteratively over many years, you can spread the cost out over a longer time frame. This allows for reinvestment from earlier versions into the new versions.

When you have an MVP, you can take this same approach and provide value for the business within a short period while minimizing your costs. The MVP offer immediate value and as you gain users you’re able to improve the product based upon feedback from that user base. You’ll be able to make more intelligent investment decisions and grow the direction of the product.

The MVP or Minimum Viable Product model allows you to start on a smaller scale, but build up iteratively to create a better product with more polish. You can use user intelligence gathered from previous versions to help you design a better product. The product will evolve over each version and you’ll gain more ROI (return on investment) with the versions as you work towards a mature application.

Why You Need to Deliver Often and Quickly: The App Submission Process Is Just the Start

When you ship a product, you have just gone through a large benchmark. The release of the product is really just the beginning of the process. You can’t expect the app to have large downloads, perform well and have a lot of usage, without working to improve mistakes. This is a common problem that many make when launching an app.

You can’t just publish and pray that everything is going to go well. This assumes that the launched app is perfect and fully complete. It also ignores the benefits you get from collecting feedback about your app from users. This allows you to roll out new version based upon the feedback and market data. Delivering often and quickly can have benefits for both mature products and unproven ones, but the scenarios will be different.

Concepts Which Are Unproven
When you have a smaller user base for a product that’s unproven on the market, you’ll have a smaller release and you’ll want to launch quickly. There’s a degree of uncertainty with new concepts so you can’t know what the user is going to want right away. By getting it to the market quickly, you can collect data, get user feedback, and look at the assumptions you have made about your product. If you take too long to get your unproven product to market, then you’re using up time and resources based upon assumptions and you may need to change these. Failures will also cost more.

When you release a product you’ll learn from the user base and be able to improve the user experience. You can add new features, fill in gaps in older versions, and make your product better for the user. By focusing on features that the users want or are using the most of in the app for example, you can make the product better and then roll out the new features.

Once you grow the app by looked at the assumptions through approving or disapproving them, have made a more mature app, deliver new features quickly on a regular basis, you will retain, engage, and have a happy user base for your app.

Brands Which Are Mature
When you have a mature brand, there’s already a large user base. Consumers expect a level of quality from any mature product or brand regardless if it’s mobile or not. When the first version of a product goes to market, it has to meet a level of quality that consumers expect. It might not have a lot of features, but it has to be of a high quality, functional, and have real value for the consumer. Users don’t have as much leniency for mature brands when compared to unproven products. New products from an established brand need to please customers from the first release. A viable product is going to be different depending upon the company that’s going to be releasing it.

An MVP needs to be launched quickly, but the first version has to be fleshed out. If you update often, you’re able to add new features and functionality to that product so the user experience is enhanced and more value is added. This adds to retention and user engagement. You need to add value to users when you release new versions and worry less about validating your assumptions to prove your concept.

Spotify has a Decoupled Release Model by creating an environment where the release is easy to do. Their product is complex, but they have changed the architecture which allows for decoupled releases so new features can be pushed out easily without impacting the overall architecture. It’s a ship early and ship often mindset. They have a lightweight process so they can rapidly get new features of their product out fast.

Quick Frequent Releases Make for Better Products
When you deliver quickly and often, you will be able to consistently improve your product, add value to your users, and ensure that your product has longer-term success. It’s important to have a culture and a process that will allow you to do this. You can’t just focus on the initial launch as you’ll have a stagnant product and it will lose its relevancy in the marketplace which is competitive and evolving all the time.

A Checklist for Your Product Launch

It doesn’t matter if you’re doing a product relaunch. Launching a new product, or doing and update to an existing product., a launch can either save money and time or cost you both. Here are five steps which will help your team no matter the current size of that team. The steps will help reduce abandonment rates after launch, drive the daily usage, and maximize user retention. Make sure you remain flexible so you adjust things according to your needs as things will likely change as you move forward.

Have an Understanding of Your Audience
The first items on our Product Launch Checklist is conducting market research. You have to know the audience before you begin the steps as this will help you save time and money because you’re not just putting your product into the market without much thought. You have to know what the audience is looking for, what they don’t like in the current market, and what gives them problems. You need to know what causes a user pain by looking at their attitudes and their behaviors. If you’re doing a product launch and don’t know your audience, you won’t know the threats that could face your new product right away. You have to invest in market research as it provides a steady foundation so the rest of the product launch goes smoothly.

Messaging and Positioning Statement
Once you have completed all the market research, you have to create a deliverable. To do this, you need to know the weaknesses and strength of the product and share this with the project team and any stakeholders.

The Unique Value Proposition of Your Product
Once you know who you’re going to target, you have to determine the factors that make your product better than the competition. This will be called your Unique Value Proposition. This describes why the product will provide value to customers and the reasons why they need to buy-in. There are many apps in the marketplace, so you need to let the customer know why your app is going to provide more value. You have to focus on why it’s more valuable not just describe the product as you want it to stand out in the market.

You should ensure the internal team is on the same page as you in regards to messaging. An essential part of a product launch is having strong internal communications. You have to communicate in an effective manner to stakeholders, your team, and others or you won’t get the buy-in that you have anticipated.

Creating a Master Marketing Plan for Your Launch
Once you all the market research done you need to focus on your execution. You have to have an effective marketing plan for the product launch to be successful. Each step has to be executed in the right way and in a timely manner.

Promoting the Content
A good plan has a clear goal that the team has researched and agreed upon. Once you have your plan, you’re able to create marketing strategies which might include early access for bloggers, social media presence, website designs, advertising, and others. You should map out a timeline of expected events which will lead up to your product launch and then the launch ahead of time.

Once all of the launch activities are planned, you can assess what resources you need. This might include, product screenshots, demo decks, design materials and other resources. The audience might get resources from various sources so you need to make sure the message is tailored to the efficiency of the various outlets which will carry your message. Make sure you plan the marketing strategy with lots of time to spare because marketing is just as important as getting your product ready for its launch date.

Launching of Your Product
Quettra had a survey that showed 77% of daily app users will stop using an app after only three days. You want your app to have a high download and a retention rate so the first impression of your app is a key one the first few days before the actual launch. During this time, you need to showcase the value of your app to your target audience. You have to show value and impress the user quickly or you’ll lose their interest.

Follow-Up After Launch
Once you have launched your product, ensure that you look at what went well with the launch and what you’ll need to improve upon. In the follow-up you want to look at retention rates, engagement, and the satisfaction of customers. Feedback and customer’s reviews will help you determine if you met the goals of the launch. User may abandon an app because they have a lack of interest in it, lack of real usefulness in the app, or changes in their needs. If market demands change you need to be aware of this and shift to the new demands customers now have.

The launch isn’t a one-time event, especially if you’re launching an app. You’ll need to make improvements to the app and reassess the product as the market demands change. You should update and relaunch products on a regular basis so users are engaged with new features and functionality.