Minimum Viable Product: Benefit of MVP Development and Why is it Important for Startups?

Minimum Viable Products assist entrepreneurs in validating their market breakthrough ideas. MVP software development is a product that assists in this research and ensures the entrepreneur does not make a mistake by deploying its business idea in the wrong market.

An MVP development is a base product with all essential features required to perform the primary function(s). This type of product is used to validate the consumer demand in a market and collect consumer feedback for further improvement. MVP especially assists in testing the business potential of service and a product in a specific given market.

The success of a product hinges on providing the right solution to the identified target market. All speculative analysis can be rendered redundant if the product does not appeal to the masses. Real-time feedback from customers cannot be replaced by drawing board analysis and it underpins assurance of project viability. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, and countless others have successfully employed an MVP software development strategy to fuel their success.

MVP Development Process

If you still want to develop yourself with the help of an MVP, or just wanted to know the procedure, then the following are the steps that will help you:

Planning: The planning stage of an MVP development involves market research, feature selection, technology selection, resource allocation, etc. Initial planning of a project takes more time than expected.

Designing: MVP designing isn’t a quick process either. It involves too much brainstorming and back and forth. Your development team cannot progress without your approval of the designs. Any changes will also further increase the development time.

Development: Here we mean the actual programming of the MVP software development. If your MVP software development has a full-fledged team of developers, then the development period should not take much time. However, you also want a stable release with no bugs at all. To ensure that a round of testing and quality assurance is required and it can increase the overall time as well. Lastly, the experience of the developers also matters. Highly experienced developers would be able to finish the development stage faster in comparison to freshers or inexperienced developers.

Market Validation and Customization: The actual purpose of MVP development services is to validate the market potential of an idea and gather user feedback. However, each MVP development doesn't need to validate the potential or stand up to your expectations. For that purpose, it can require further changes and customization based on the feedback. With every round of changes (or call it sprints in the industrial jargon), the development time increases.

Based on all above factors, your MVP can take anywhere between 3 months to 12 months for development or even more.

Why are important is MVP Software Development for Startup Companies?

Just like the name suggests, an MVP software development is a base product with the bare minimum features required for performing primary functions. First, it is used to validate the market demand and understand the overall consumer perception of the product idea. Once the demand is validated, the startup can continue with the production and look forward to launching the product in the targeted market(s).

An MVP software development is different from a sample product, including all functions and features, for marketing purposes. MVP development emphasizes more on market validation, the scope of improvement and is not sales & marketing oriented.

MVP Development Cost for startups

Several factors must be considered while estimating the cost of an MVP software development services. These factors are planning, design, features, technology stack, and the reputation and expertise of a company.

Design and Features: Complex designs and features will cost you more. Even though an MVP only includes the bare minimum features for market validation, the complexity and time it takes to develop those features affect the overall costs. Moreover, any TPI (third-party integrations) that are required to support the functionality in the MVP may also increase the cost.

Technology Stack: MVP development companies for startups that work on difficult technology stacks will charge you more. This is because to develop such MVPs, companies require highly skilled programmers who come with high salaries. Thus, your required technology stack impacts the cost of MVP too.

Reputation of a Company: Highly reputed companies that are known for their quality MVPs and assisting entrepreneurs in launching new businesses have higher development rates. Their hard-earned name ensures that you will be receiving a quality end-product, which makes these companies more reliable and different than your average software development companies.

Additional Customizations: MVPs can require further customization post-deployment. This is to ensure that business ideas are properly validated before further development. If the deployment highlights some shortcomings in the MVP or user feedback suggests some changes, executing those changes will also add to the development costs.

Depending on all these factors, you can expect your MVP to cost between the range of $4,000 - $10,000. This is just a rough estimation and the actual price can be a little low or higher than this range. However, you would also like to keep in mind to not select cheap and barely heard MVP development companies who may fail to deliver a quality MVP. Secondly, selecting a costly MVP software development company without proper research is also risky as that company can be overcharging.

Also, you would like to visit FATbit Technologies, a custom software development company that has prepared several MVPs for the eCommerce industry. With these MVPs, you can validate your business idea in different markets and launch several types of businesses like online marketplaces, rental marketplaces, online tutoring platforms, cab booking platforms, food delivery platforms, etc.