Erik Ries who wrote the bestseller The Lean Startup says that the best strategy to dive into the Product-Market fit is by rolling out a Minimum Viable Product(MVP) and continuously iterating the same based on user’s feedback. This is the exact opposite to what we do today which is to release with what we think is our final and perfect product to the public.

This is not a wise idea!

“If you are not embarrassed by your first release, you probably spent too much time on it”

Here are the 5 most important rules for building a successful Minimum Viable Product(MVP).

5 Most important rules of building a successful MVP

1. Learning must be your goal!

MVP is the version of a new product which allows the team to gather a maximum amount of validated learning about the customers with the least amount of time and money. Your concept must be genuine. If you cannot explain it clearly and simply, don’t expect that your customers will understand it.

The important point is that you must have a clear idea about what you want to learn from this feedback. What problem your MVP is going to be addressed? Are your customers really like your idea or not? What is the important feature you would like to have on your product to solve the problem which you are planning to address? The problem you are choosing to get answers is the most important thing and chose it smartly to validate the results in build, measure and learn product building ecosystem.

2. Do not waste too much money

The whole idea behind building a minimum viable product is that you get a chance to review and improve your product before you are pouring a lot of money into it. So, you don’t need to release a full-fledged version of your product and instead, please concentrate on the main problem you are planning to get resolved or your core idea. It must be a cheap and not time-consuming solution to get feedback from your customers. You can choose the best-suited one from the different types of MVP.

3. Choose your target customers wisely

You will face more difficulty in finding the right customers if your proposed solution is more innovative. It’s not necessary that your proposed solution must be for everyone! You can share your MVP with the same people from your professional network who find passion in new ideas, give honest and constructive feedback. I am sure that they will give you an impartial opinion about the questions you are asking and will be the entry point to a wider section of your targeted customers.

4. Test, test, test and more test

If your assumptions are not correct, then there is a great chance that your MVP is going to be a disaster. Avoid it at any cost. The best way to get it is to test our MVP more and more. Your thinking will not always be the same as what the customers are actually looking for. Instead of assumptions, it’s always better to find an answer and validate every hypothesis even if it looks good. The more feedback you get through testing, the more you are closer to your customers’ needs and goals.

5. Changes make your product fantastic

“ Everybody has ideas, however, what really matters is having ideas to solve real problems”
– Orkun Ozbatur

Our ideas and views are so dear to us so much so that we always have a tendency to avoid the actual feedback from the customers. Most of their feedback might not be in align our ideas. This is the prime reason that many products are ended up by using very fewer people apart from us. The thumb rule is that if your product needs to be successful in the market, it must be liked and used by the real customers not us. It’s anytime a good idea to develop one which the customers love and are ready to spend their hard-earned money on it.

This article is written by Manoj Pillai, Head of Delivery at AlignMinds Technologies