Is Minimum Viable Product appropriate for a startup or established company?
When we hear the term ‘Minimum viable product’ the first thought in mind would be it is used only by startups ??.
As the concept was introduced to the world by Eric Ries from his book ‘The Lean Startup’ which is majorly on building startups.MVP states to create products with minimum efforts using validated learning for early adopters.Definition is so perspective based and misunderstood by most of us as in below figure.
I thought to explain it by breaking it down into its three main words MVP.
Minimum here urges us to take least effort in building the product. With this, people think we need not put forth our best efforts. That is absolutely wrong ! Here least efforts should be taken in creating products and continuing progress only based on response from customers.By this not only efforts but also risk of losing resources like money, workforce e.t.c is reduced.
Viable products should have core features. When an idea or solution of a problem is turned into a product it never implements all the features in its first version. Even if a product owner thinks it has it is not so! That is a myth. Through MVP, viable products are launched and looked for responses from users. Major step to be followed after that is learning from response , improving the product and thus staying in the market for a longer run. The market is volatile and requires it to be highly competitive. This competitiveness should never be overlooked but many times that is the main hurdle in launching a viable product. So now, you should not be in doubt of hitting the market with viable products. NOBODY KNOWS WHETHER YOUR VIABLE PRODUCT CAN TURN INTO MILLION DOLLAR PRODUCT so TRY IT OUT !!!
Product is the main crux of MVP which people feared to be of degraded quality if it does not incorporate all features. This is a myth as MVP does not ask to create a product of low quality which people implicitly think from ‘minimum’ word. If you are launching a product with main core features then how will it lose the quality? Add-ons would be definitely missing but once a tested response is received from users then further efforts should be put in.
The market trends and analysis metrics are vital in product life cycle but not of utmost importance when the product is in its initial phase. Products of similar features are launched and very few out of them sustain. Those that sustained are the ones who not only retained early adopters of their product but turned them into loyal customers. MVP focuses on validated learning which comes from working on the feedback received from customers.
A concept which does not showcase results is just theoretical and has associated myths. MVP has been proven as a boon from startups to established companies. Myths about MVP have been broken down by the stats from many companies. Lets perceive the concept by looking into lifeline of companies that went from nothing to multi-billion dollars MNCs
Airbnb product assumption was that strangers will pay to stay in your house.
To test assumption, founders played the role of seller. Chesky and Gebbia tested this in the easiest manner possible. They provided air mattresses in their living room, free wifi, free breakfast, and the promise of a unique networking experience with like-minded people.
They didn’t rent out space or build new beds. They leveraged their existing assets in order to test their assumption as quickly as possible. Much as we might use a third-party tool or library in early prototypes, they minimized their cost and therefore their risk and arrived at a testable product quickly. From there, they could gather data and iterate going forward by making it a $30 billion worth company.
Amazon, a known name for online shopping, has been so successful due to MVP.Jeff Bezos started a website to sell books online. If a customer ordered a book then the company would buy it from a distributor and ship it. After getting massive response and iteration after interaction of improvement today it is one of the major e-commerce company.
Twitter was designed for employees at podcast company Odeo. After seeing the amazing response within the organization it was launched to the world. Now it has 330 million users and net worth of $24.6 billion (2019).
Had all these companies had not used MVP by hitting the market with their viable product using minimum efforts and validated learning would they have been such huge success stories?
