In our previous article, we talked about how Mobisoft approaches product development, focussing on a minimal viable product. MVP is a strategy targeted at avoiding building products that customers do not want, by building just those core features that allow a product to be deployed, and no more. The process maximises the information learnt about the customer per dollar spent. It enables the highest return on investment -versus- risk.
It’s not actually a minimal product, rather it is an iterative process of idea generation, prototyping, presentation, data collection, analysis and learning, where the focus is on minimising the total time spent on each iteration.
“The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.“
The product is typically presented to a subset of possible customers, such as early adopters that are thought to be more forgiving, more likely to give valuable feedback, and able to grasp a product’s vision from an early prototype or marketing information. The process is iterated until a desirable product or market fit is obtained (or until the product is deemed to be non-viable).
Notable examples of MVP websites are Yahoo, where back in 1994, two students put together a simple list of their favourite web links, or the WordPress website about group buying that later evolved into Groupon.
Other products which consisted of very basic features include the first iPhone which had no ‘search’ or cut-and-paste functionality, or Virgin airlines, where they only had one route. Others have simply visualised an idea, like how the founders of Dropbox created a video that showed potential investors how it would work before they’d even built it.
http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-viable-product-guide.html