Why You Should Develop MVP First?

In the world of software development and startups, there are often abbreviations that describe different stages and concepts. MVP, MMP, MLP, MDP, and MAP are just some of them. These terms are commonly used but their definitions and usefulness for a project are not always clear.

In this article, we will look at each of these stages to help you better understand what they mean and how they can be applied to your project.

Companies aiming for growth and competitive advantage understand the importance of quickly creating an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). This saves time and money by avoiding the development of a final product, costly marketing campaigns, and other expenses.

An MVP focuses on creating essential features, allowing for feedback from users to improve the final product. Skipping an MVP significantly reduces a company’s chances of success and progress.

When choosing to enter the market with an MVP version of a product, it’s important to keep its main goal and core functions that meet the needs of the target audience. If there’s failure, the problem often lies not with the MVP itself, but with incorrectly identified user needs. In such cases, it’s necessary to continue gathering and processing data to better understand user requests.

After launching the MVP version of the project and realizing its inadequacy, a pivot often occurs—a sharp change in the project’s direction to ensure its development and viability. Startup owners are often passionate about their project idea, focusing efforts on creating perfect product design and functionality, sometimes forgetting about market demands and needs.

What is MVP?

Let’s delve into what MVP is and why startup owners or other project creators should (or shouldn’t) develop it.

MVP (Minimum Viable Product) — a model for creating a basic version of a website or app with essential features that satisfy user needs. It’s a method for quickly launching a project to gather user feedback, validate ideas and concepts that need to be implemented, and test different market approaches. The MVP should closely resemble the final product that will be released to the market.

Additionally, MVP can serve as a tool for attracting investments and saving on initial startup development costs, although that’s not its primary goal. It’s a method for swiftly launching a project to establish a presence in the market, gain insights into shortcomings, and understand what needs improvement moving forward.

The MVP should be well thought out to spark customer interest and satisfaction without being cumbersome. The goal of development is to attract initial customers and gather feedback for future growth strategies. According to statistics, 90% of new projects fail, and 42% close within the first two years due to lack of market demand. Thus, hypotheses based solely on personal market perceptions are often flawed.

Creating truly demanded and useful software requires thorough analytical groundwork. Projects often developed from scratch lack such information and are primarily built on assumptions. Therefore, an MVP is ideal for testing ideas, understanding product functions, and features.

There are many models of MVP that cover different types and approaches, but two that startup owners often use are:

• Product visualization – a method to test functional hypotheses through marketing. This involves visually explaining how the final solution will look and which user needs it satisfies. Typically, this can be achieved with a landing page, promotional campaigns, surveys, explanatory videos, and so on. The advantage of this method is time savings.
• Pre-sales first, development later – This approach revolves around selling the product first and then starting development only after receiving funds.

It’s important to choose the right approach based on the product idea, strategy, and desired goals.

There’s a methodology called Lean Startup, where MVP is a part of it. Its core involves creating a valid hypothesis that quickly goes through the Build-Measure-Learn cycle. In other words, conducting an experiment, analyzing results and metrics, and then gathering data. This information helps founders decide whether to develop the product further or explore other approaches, restarting the Build-Measure-Learn cycle as needed.

We suggest considering an example of developing an MVP version of a website based on our case studies. Havas Digital Kyiv has been our partners for many years, and our task was to develop an MVP website for the quickest launch. The MVP version included: the main homepage, a contact form, and a case studies page without internal links. Learn more about this project with Havas Digital Kyiv.

Why it's worth developing MVP first: main advantages and disadvantages.

Let’s take a closer look at the advantages of developing an MVP:

• Quick feedback loop: MVP allows you to receive feedback from real users and understand which product features need to be added, removed, or modified. Timely feedback and minimal investments help better understand the target audience and optimize the product to create high demand at launch.
• Lower risk and greater flexibility: After developing and launching the final product, the cost and time required for modifications significantly increase. With MVP, there are lower costs for adjustments and refinements because the product’s functionality and software are simpler and smaller.
• Hypothesis testing made simple: MVP enables relatively quick testing of a product idea in real market conditions without requiring perfect design or lengthy planning.
• ROI from well-crafted MVP: It allows for pre-sales of the final product before its full market release, speeding up investment returns.
• Shorter development time and reduced competition: Developing unique software often takes years, during which market competition can intensify or similar solutions may emerge if your product is unique. Creating an MVP happens much faster, allowing you to outpace competitors, introduce users to the product, and gain their favor.
• Higher likelihood of attracting investments: Clarity and the ability to test the product on real user groups make it easier to demonstrate its functionality and project potential, attracting investments for further development.
• Understanding market needs: A common problem in successful product launches is developing complex solutions without thorough research and understanding of the market’s need for the product or service.
• Cost savings on marketing: MVP enables testing on real target audience groups, facilitating adjustments in the product. Better understanding of the target audience helps optimize future marketing campaign budgets.
• Quick market entry: Launching an MVP is significantly faster than full project development, allowing you to outmaneuver competitors, carve out a niche, and attract initial users.

Compared to its advantages, the disadvantages of MVP are significantly fewer:

• Lack of product features: Since it’s a minimal viable product, only essential functions are implemented, risking that they may be insufficient to meet the end consumer’s needs. In such cases, refining the MVP is necessary to gain necessary market popularity and desired results.
• Potential for errors: Using MVP increases the likelihood of incorrectly targeting the target audience, which can affect finding customers for the final product. To avoid this, it’s crucial to conduct detailed analytics on various audience groups and test different ideas to attract them.

If we compare development to chemical experiments, in the latter case, each experiment is a step towards new discoveries. Similarly, with creating an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), every product element needs to be purposefully and accurately chosen. As a result, several key reasons can be highlighted why focusing on MVP development should be prioritized.

• Saving resources and minimizing risks

Economic efficiency is one of the main reasons, as functionality takes precedence while non-essential options and ambitious ideas are put aside. This significantly reduces the cost of an MVP compared to developing full-scale software, websites, and other products.

The entire MVP cycle is accompanied by minimal resource expenditures, allowing the team to validate their ideas, refine the project, before making substantial investments in large-scale development. Savings are not just financial but also in terms of time.

All of this minimizes future risks by reducing the development of features that end-users don’t need. According to startup failure statistics, lack of funds is a primary reason for the collapse of young projects. Even with significant mistakes in an MVP, outright failure saves the company countless hours and money.

• Testing hypotheses and ideas

MVP is a great way to validate your own hypotheses and test various assumptions or ideas without large investments. In startups, it’s often impossible to be 100% certain of success, and owners cannot accurately know if their theories match reality in the following areas:

• Business concepts.
• Market demand.
• Product value and uniqueness.
• Target audience and their needs.
• Development design.
• Marketing strategy.

Different variations of testing MVP will allow gathering all the answers to these directions. Additionally, it provides an opportunity to easily identify drawbacks and risks, and adjust the product to meet the needs and pains of the target audience.

MVP enables a quick validation of all hypotheses and ideas in real market conditions, both in early and later stages of the project, if changes are introduced to it.

• Development of functionality

Typically, MVP does not include extensive functionality, but integrates options that actually work. This applies to early versions of the product, where development does not require large costs and much time. However, everything must be high-quality, clean, and error-free.

• Ahead of competitors

Reducing the time to market and delivering the product to users positively impacts further development, placing the company several steps ahead compared to competitors. This enables quick feedback for further development decisions.

• Incremental development

Through iterative development, companies can step-by-step enhance their product, integrating improvements and other refinements based on feedback and collected information. This approach helps evolve the final product according to the needs and issues of the target audience.

• Fast sales

Many startups face challenges with stable revenue streams and profitability. Early-stage revenue helps execute and integrate more complex solutions. A high-quality MVP, if successful, will deliver the desired results, with early adopters purchasing the early version or through pre-sales campaigns.

Early-stage revenue indicates that the company is moving in the right direction, and the product meets market needs, customer demands, and so on. Funds can be directed towards further development or used for product testing.

• High chances of attracting investors

External financial support from investors is another crucial element for startups. Without developing an MVP, a company may lose potential investors. Projects with an MVP have higher chances of attracting additional funding. Investors see a working solution not just in presentation but in the real market, with initial users and feedback.

Transitioning MVP into a full-fledged product should be considered when testing has provided all facts indicating customer interest and willingness to purchase or pay for the product or service. Comprehensive evaluation is recommended using various metrics to gain a clearer understanding. For example, a customer might be interested in the product but may decline to subscribe or purchase after familiarity. Therefore, all data should be compared, finding the right approach to the target audience. Product and marketing metrics depicted below should be utilized in the analysis.

The stages of MVP development.

There are several fundamental steps to launching an MVP. A clear development structure helps identify key tasks, set development directions, and avoid mistakes.

At each stage, it’s important to adhere to the following principles:

• Collect statistical and other data.
• Conduct pre-sales of the product to form a user base by the time the final product launches.
• Gather customer data, conduct surveys, and other activities to study and better understand the target audience (TA).
• Create convenient feedback mechanisms to quickly gather reviews.
• Launch a marketing campaign: develop a detailed product landing page, create social media profiles for the brand, attract paid traffic, and more.

Let’s consider the 10 main stages of MVP development:

• Problem Identification: Determine which goals and needs of users in the market the future product will satisfy. Answering this helps understand the feasibility of development, potential target audience size, and potential additional product features.
• Target Audience (TA) Research: It’s crucial not only to identify but also to segment the TA to ensure the product aligns well with the needs of each group. Focusing on a few key TA segments helps reduce time and money spent on development. A common mistake in MVP development is expanding the TA too broadly; at this stage, the goal is to test the product and assess its potential.
• Competitor Analysis: Evaluating competitors helps assess their strengths and weaknesses, identify advantages that can be incorporated into your own product, and formulate unique features that will distinguish it.
• SWOT Analysis: Before beginning development, it’s essential to understand potential risks, threats, opportunities, and development directions.

Here’s the translation of the text into simple English:

• Customer Journey Map: This is the path that users take as they get acquainted with the product. It should not complicate things but motivate users to achieve your set goals.
• Feature List with Prioritization: At this stage, it’s important to clearly define the main functions of the product. These should be easily understood, detailed, and prioritized. This approach makes it easier to identify the features that are necessary for developing the MVP. Prioritization helps see what needs more attention and what can be postponed for now.
• MVP Scope: Only the basic framework of the program won’t be enough to accomplish the main tasks. However, the MVP should not be too complex either, as this can slow down development and increase costs. Finding a “middle ground” is necessary, and for this, it’s important to create a schematic plan for implementing selected features based on their priority.
• Management and Development Method: This step marks the beginning of technical development. There are several main methods for project management:

Lean: This method focuses on getting quick feedback, and the working version of the product is created quickly using the “build-measure-learn” template.

Scrum is compared to a sprint, where each project participant receives their task and clear deadlines for completion.

XP (Extreme Programming) is about rapidly developing an MVP with scalability in mind, without long pauses for design or working out details. Initially, code is created for the software to function, and then design is developed and functionality is improved later on.

Kanban is a project management method based on the model of unfinished production. Unlike traditional methods where tasks are planned in advance, Kanban allows for dynamic responses to changes and optimization of workloads. This makes it an ideal approach to use after the initial release of an MVP, when the project continues to receive user feedback.

These are just a few development methods, and their selection depends directly on the project’s tasks, goals, and resources.

• Testing. It’s important to conduct internal software analysis to assess, identify shortcomings, and address potential issues. Beta testing involves checking with real customers who have specific time-limited access to the product. Their task is to provide feedback and identify problems. After this, a full MVP release is possible with real-time performance monitoring.
• MVP launch. At this stage, it’s crucial to ensure that the target audience can easily find and familiarize themselves with the product. Another effective strategy is to announce the launch, which generates more interest among potential customers.

The main concepts of development: MMP, MLP, MDP and MAP.

In an era of rapid technological progress and a constantly increasing number of startups, understanding the stages of scaling is sometimes crucial to success. Each startup has unique ideas and goals. Below, we’ll explain each stage in detail and provide examples.

In the era of technological advancement and a large number of startups, understanding the different stages – MVP, MMP, MLP, MDP, and MAP – is crucial for success. Each of these stages has unique ideas and goals. Below, we’ll explain each of them in simple terms with examples.

What is MMP?

A Minimal Marketable Product (MMP) is a product with a basic set of features that customers are willing to pay for. Using feedback and experience, we test and adjust the feature set from MVP to achieve the right functionality that customers want to pay for. Essentially, MMP is an improved version of MVP. The goal of this stage is to generate initial revenue, continue improving the business model, and expand the target audience groups.

If you need more information about other stages like MLP, MDP, or MAP, feel free to ask!

For example, let’s consider Twitter. Its first version included only basic features. Despite this, the platform operated smoothly as the number of active users grew steadily. Continuous feedback from early users helped shape the platform we see today. This example also highlights the importance of having a technical team always available, as sudden audience growth can lead to software issues requiring immediate attention.

Another example is Amazon’s website. Its MVP version was an online bookstore with a few options. However, rapid development allowed Amazon to become a unique player without competitors at that time. Timely and quality website development became unique advantages that laid the foundation for active growth and platform feature expansion.**

What is MLP?

Minimum Lovable Product (MLP) is a product with minimal features but enough to become loved by a specific group of users. The core concept is that it’s not always necessary to satisfy every user need to become loved.

The main goal of the concept is to create a product that users will like, including emotionally. Currently, creating a technical solution that solves audience problems is not enough. Creating emotions and impressions from using the product can be achieved through design, convenient and unique user experiences, visual effects, marketing activities, and more.

Features that distinguish MLP:

• Regular testing of designs and other activities aimed at emotions
• Collection and analysis of user experience data

For example, let’s take a car that has enough features to get you from home to work. It solves the main task, but if you add a comfortable interior, nice design, and some extra features, the ride becomes more enjoyable and memorable. In this case, it’s not just about getting from point A to point B, but also about creating a pleasant experience and emotions — that’s the essence of MLP.

For a more real-life example, let’s consider Instagram. Right after entering the market, besides its main function of photo sharing, the service added filters for photo editing. This allowed them to create a unique and interactive user experience and build a base of fans.

What is MDP?

The Minimum Delightful Product (MDP) is about creating a product that will be liked by the audience. While MVP aims to solve problems and provide satisfaction with exceeding expectations, the concept of MDP focuses on creating a product that not only meets needs but also delivers a delightful experience.

MDP involves developing a product with a wow factor. This includes features or other details that significantly differentiate the project from competitors, creating pleasant impressions.

For example, consider music streaming services. In the MVP stage, it might be a simple program for listening to audio. In MDP, features like personalized playlists, social media sharing, and even live concerts, releases, or recommendations based on saved audio can be added. This doesn’t just meet customer needs but creates a pleasant experience and sets the product apart in the market.

MDP is similar to MVP in that it’s a “minimum product,” but its goal is to optimize user experience rather than just entering the market. It retains the MVP idea of creating only what’s necessary but also aims to garner extra favor from customers and attract their attention. This can be clearly seen, for example, with donuts.

In the development of MDP, a lot of attention is given to understanding the target audience, integrating unique product features, and conducting regular testing. In 2007, the iPhone was first introduced not just as a phone but as a device that revolutionized mobile technology with its sleek design, user-friendly interface, and innovative features like the touchscreen and the app store.

What is MAP?

Minimum Awesome Product (MAP) is the final stage of a project or startup cycle where the product not only solves the target audience’s problems but exceeds their expectations. At this stage, the product has all the necessary functionality and offers exceptional interaction with users. In other words, it creates a wow effect for users, distinguishing the product in a competitive environment. For the owner, it becomes a tool that users love, recommend to others, and advocate for.

For example, consider the iPhone – right after its release, it wasn’t just another phone like most on the market; it was a music player, an internet device, and a camera. This impressed users and gained a large fan base.

Creating a MAP requires a deep understanding of the target audience and their needs, so the product must continually improve and be sufficiently innovative. At the MAP stage, the final product doesn’t just solve problems; it captivates the audience by exceeding expectations. MAP helps build a loyal customer base, sets the product apart, and promotes long-term, stable growth for the entire project. The image shows an example of a service displaying similar content but with significant visual differences.

Choosing the right stage for developing a project (including a startup) is a crucial decision that can impact the future progress of the entire business. Here are some key points to consider:

• Product Goals Assessment: MVP is suitable for the early stage of a product where idea validation is necessary. To stand out in the market and create emotions and impressions, it may be more appropriate to choose MDP or MAP.
• Resource Analysis: Developing MAP requires more time, money, and other resources compared to MVP. It’s important to budget appropriately and consider the timeframe and capabilities. If resources are limited, starting with MVP and gradually progressing to MMP, MLP, MDP, and then MAP may be better.
• Market Understanding: The stage selection also depends on market conditions. Launching an MVP doesn’t always guarantee popularity, especially in highly competitive markets. Additional stages like MLP or MDP may be necessary to differentiate the product and please the target audience.
• Iterations and Feedback: All stages should involve feedback from users and other information. This feedback is invaluable for product improvement and moving to new stages. Positive feedback and willingness to pay for the product with MVP might indicate readiness to move to MMP.
• Risk Assessment: Each stage carries its own risks. MVP typically involves lower risks compared to MAP. However, the potential profitability of MAP is higher with greater potential.
• Long-term Product Vision: Considering the product as more than just a tool is important. It should aim to become an integral part of users’ lives. In such cases, aiming for MLP, MDP, or MAP right from the start of the project is advisable.

Below is a comparative table of MVP, MMP, MLP, MDP, and MAP for easier orientation and understanding:

The product can evolve gradually from one stage to another. There are no strict boundaries; the key is making the right strategic decisions that align with goals, budget, and market conditions. Whether you’re just planning development or already have a product that needs improvement, it involves a list of analytical, technical, and other tasks.

The Gremcy Software Development Company can assist with project development at any stage: from analytics and UX/UI design to front-end and back-end development, as well as technical project support and code review.