A minimum viable product is an early version of a new product that allows teams to gather validated learning. This process can save a company time and money compared to building a complete product.
Many successful companies like Amazon, Dropbox, Airbnb, and Spotify started out as Minimum Viable Products. This method helps startups to reduce risk and ensures that they’re creating products that their customers want.
Dropbox
The founders of Dropbox knew that the success of their product hinged on whether people would actually buy it. They were smart enough to make an explainer video before putting any money into building the actual product, which allowed them to test their idea and gauge interest.
One of the biggest benefits of using an MVP is that it can save time and money by allowing startups to test their ideas with real users. This reduces the risk of wasting money on features that users don’t want and improves chances of finding product-market fit.
Another benefit of an MVP is that it can help startups get pre-payments before investing in a product. For example, the Pebble e-paper watch, which was created with an MVP, raised $10M on Kickstarter and received payments before it had been produced.
Airbnb
Creating a minimum viable product is a crucial step in the product development process. It helps you gather the maximum amount of information about your target audience and their buying habits. It also allows you to test your business concept.
Airbnb is a great example of a successful minimally viable product. Using this strategy saved them time and money. It also increased the likelihood of securing funding and finding a product-market fit.
Adding features to a product can increase its functionality, but it can also make the product more complicated and expensive. A minimum viable product lets you build a prototype with just the essential features. It’s the quickest way to get through the validated learning cycle (Build-Measure-Learn). It also helps you save money by avoiding expensive development mistakes. For example, if you’re developing a medical product, an MVP can help you gather feedback from doctors and patients before you invest in a full-scale version.
Groupon
Groupon is a service that offers vouchers for discounts on products and services. Businesses sign up to offer deals, and consumers receive them via e-mail. The deals range from restaurant coupons to golf course discounts. These deals help businesses gain a large customer base and make money by selling discounted goods to customers.
However, consumers should be aware of the fact that Groupon deals may not always provide good value for money. In some cases, businesses have to lower prices in order to sell enough items to cover their costs. Also, many deals require a minimum number of purchases before the company will honor them.
In addition, the company’s business model can be vulnerable to competitors that offer more targeted services. This approach allows competitors to reduce acquisition costs and build a more extensive subscriber base faster than Groupon. It also allows them to respond more quickly to changes in consumer trends. These competitors can also increase profits more rapidly than Groupon.
Spotify
When it comes to music-streaming apps, Spotify is the first name that comes to mind. Love it or hate it, the app is one of the most successful Minimum Viable Products out there. Its developers started by implementing an MVP with a simple landing page that asked users to choose between plans and pricing. This helped them to determine whether the product would be of interest to people.
Ek and Lorentzon realized that if they spent huge amounts of money building an app before testing it with customers, they could waste a lot of time and money. They used their MVP to test the market and then built a fully functional app.
This approach is called a manual-first MVP and it works well for service-based startups. Buffer is another example of a successful company that has implemented this type of MVP strategy. Its MVP looks fully functional from the outside but all the processes are carried out manually by humans, who are nicknamed “wizards” behind the curtain.
