In our article Achieving Product-market Fit in Your Business, we took a look at steps necessary for developing the right product for your specific market. If you already haven’t, we recommend that you read that article to get a rounded understanding of this one which talks in detail about developing a successful MVP or minimum viable product. 

A market-fitting product is one of the key components for achieving a product-market fit. Also, to avoid waste of resources, it is important to develop an MVP that thrives at first attempt. So if you’re really looking for a step-by-step guide to developing a successful MVP then you’re on the right page. 

How To Create a Successful MVP

Determine a Core Feature 

A minimum viable product is meant to allow businesses to test the performance of, at least, the single major feature of a prospective product. This means that there must be consideration for a core feature. Typically, this core feature will solve or function in solving most of the challenges for which the product is being developed. 

By identifying a core feature for your MVP, you remind yourself of the specific challenge it is intended for. You also save time and resources by prioritising when creating the product.

Decide on the Number of Features to Include

A minimum viable product (MVP) can be designed to offer single or multiple features. The available resources, amount of work required, and relevance of an additional feature should be well-considered before it is included in an MVP. 

If you finally decide to include additional features, it is advisable that you categorise them as “should haves” or “could haves”.

“Should have” features likely improve the overall feel and experience when using the product. On the other hand, “could have” features are more decorative than they are functional. 

Choose a Test Group or Region

Every product or service is designed for a known audience. In simple terms, you have to choose a specific region or group of people to test your MVP. 

A few things to consider at this stage are:

1. Whether this product solves the challenge of the intended group
2. How easy it is to reach and to stay in touch with the target audience. 

Implement Means of Monitoring and Recording the Performance and Usage of Your MVP

You surely don’t want your minimum viable product out there in the market without a way of recording critical data. That is why you should precisely consider the second dotted point in the above subheading. If you can easily reach your target audience, then you will also have better access to critical data. 

Another thing you should consider is monitoring product usage and performance. This produces what is known as Usage and Performance Data. 

Usage and performance data is a statistic that includes information on a product’s performance, while it is in use. Usage data proves helpful in the analysis and product iteration stages and one of the most common ways to collect this data is by setting up automatic error reporting on your MVP. 

This kind of reporting causes the system to identify and report the details of any unsuccessful activity or unexpected process/outcome. 

Implement Means for Receiving User Feedback and Review

Usage data is usually sent automatically from a product. But there is another way of collecting information about an MVP’s operation and performance, aside from this. It is through a  user review, feedback or report. 

A user report is provided by the user of a product. For an MVP, it is important to specifically ask for this report. The reason is that both the user feedback and the usage reports enable product iteration to correct issues. 

Huge differences sometimes exist between the quality and the type of report received from a usage data and a customer’s feedback. For example, usage data might indicate a technical error - affecting mechanical, electrical or digital aspects of a product, whereas a customer’s feedback might report a poor background or theme color on a graphical interface. 

Prepare For Analytics

After gathering data comes performing analytics. This activity is usually handled by powerful software or tools. Certain analysing tools only work for a single type of data, for example audio. Additionally, analysing tools have their various capacities. By this, it is important to know exactly what type of data and the volume of data you will be analysing. 

Implement Product Iteration 

Product iteration involves making adjustments to improve your MVP’s design. Inputs from the usage data and customer feedback are employed here. These inputs help businesses understand the inefficiencies of their product. And so by resolving these inefficiencies, the product becomes more suitable for its intended use. 

Specific steps to take in iterating your MVP are:

1. What issues did the user data and customer feedback reveal about your product? Here you’d have to list out all the points. 
2. Did the reported issues actually occur? Do they relate to the performance of the product or with the user's interaction with the product? Here you’d be verifying that the reported issues occurred. You’d also be investigating if the issue came from the product or from the user (for instance, due their inability to operate the product).
3. How far reaching is the effect of a reported issue? Sometimes one product malfunction triggers another. Knowing the effect of each reported issue therefore helps you understand the best way to implement a fix. 
4. What can you do to fix each reported issue? This is the point where you brainstorm a solution and implement it in order to improve your MVP. 

Conclusion

All set to make your MVP? If yes, then please go ahead with our guide at the side just in case you need some reference. Remember that your product must be intended for a clear, distinct challenge in a well identified market. Also, if you don’t mind, don’t forget to tell us your MVP creation story when it’s all done.