How to Create an MVP
Nowadays, new applications are created literally every day. A very important factor of software success is the feedback from active users. If the project is not completely ready, but the developers need to get an opinion from future clients, they use a version of the application called Minimum Viable Product. Let’s find out what it is and how to create an MVP.
What Is MVP?
Minimum Viable Product is a special version of the product in which developers focus on the core functionality of the application. This does not mean that they are not releasing the application ready-made. It is fully functional, only its functionality is very limited. You may be wondering why release an app early on? Here are some indisputable facts why you should include this stage in your application development.
Main Benefits of MVP Development
Actually, MVP plays a key role in the future success of the application. At this stage, developers receive feedback on bugs and problems in the app, after which they can successfully eliminate them and release the final version. So what steps should you take before active development?
Validate Your Idea
Before embarking on the active development phase, you should think through your idea with the team to the smallest detail. Think about what problems your application will solve. Think over each stage of future development and decide how your application will be useful to people. Take enough time for this stage, because as you know, all great inventions began with an idea.
Get a Better Understanding of Customer’s Needs
This stage is very important because you must provide your future users with a solution to their problems in the form of your application. Even before the creation of Minimum Viable Product you and your team should already be aware of all the needs of your clients. In order to accurately determine customer needs, you must establish a communication system and actively process customer feedback on each issue. Active work with clients is a necessary step in creating a quality product.
Benefit from Faster Development With Lower Costs
A clear distribution of the development budget is the key to your successful start. Therefore, you should not immediately allocate excessively high amounts to the development process. A safer way would be to speed up the development process but at a lower cost. In this case, you can start the MVP phase faster, as a result of which you will be able to collect feedback from customers and troubleshoot problems at a lower cost. In the case of such a strategy, the company ensures itself against large budget losses and also increases the chances of a timely release of the finished product.
Steps for Building a Minimum Viable Product for Android
Despite the fact that the modern market needs applications for Android, a huge number of applications fail just because there is no demand for them. But creating an MVP will help you avoid this. Here are some tips to help you create and use successfully MVP of your application.
Conduct Market Research
A good marketing campaign to promote your product will help you establish yourself in the market. You should keep this in mind when you want to save money on hiring a marketer. Such a demanding task cannot be trusted by non-professionals, so it is better to pay more and hire a team of specialists. As a result, you will receive a specially designed marketing strategy to promote your application. Do not worry about spending part of your budget on marketing, as this is a very important stage on which the success of your project depends.
Work on UX/UI
This development phase is critical because it determines the customer’s first impression of your product. It should be designed in such a way as to create the most intuitive and pleasant interface for clients to use. Simplify the interface as much as possible so that it is easy to understand. After the prototype of the layout has been created and even before the launch of your Minimum Viable Product, you should arrange a small test on which future users will try the convenience of your design, if everything goes well, you can use it in the project.
Define Essential Features
There is no point in creating a lot of additional functionality for your project at this stage. The most rational solution would be to focus on the core functionality of your application. Define the basic functionality and work on it to improve it comprehensively, make sure everything works without bugs and correctly so that your users don’t have problems. At this stage you must fix and refine the main functions of your application, you will still have time to add new features, but it will be best to do this after the successful release of the final product.
Choose Right MVP Development Tools
An integrated development environment is the main and most important tool for the work of developers. And the next development process will depend on the choice of the right IDE. Nowadays there are a large number of such tools, you just have to choose the most suitable for developing applications for Android. But probably the most logical choice would be to choose an Android Studio environment because this tool was created by android developers for android developers and everything you need can be found here.
Launch MVP and Collect Users’ Feedback
And now the most crucial moment has come. You have to release your creation to the world in order to get feedback and fix any problems if they will be found. Don’t worry if your application gets criticized in the beginning, because that’s what the MVP was for. Listen to the users of your product, carefully study the feedback of each client, and most importantly, actively fix all the bugs that have arisen, and you will notice how your product will get better and better before your eyes.
Conclusion
As you already understood, MVP is the safest and most correct way to enter the market. And this applies to all developers, without exception. With MVP, you can avoid most of the risks that most startups face. Approach each stage of development responsibly and your application will be successful.
