Imagine you’re a small and medium-sized business (SMB) owner with a brilliant idea for a new product, but you’re not quite sure if it’ll resonate with your customers. Enter the minimum viable product (MVP) — your most valuable player in the world of entrepreneurship. An MVP is like the preview version of your best product shared with the world for their feedback.

So, why should you care about MVPs, or how can you set it up? Sit back and learn all that and more today.

What we’ll cover:

• What is minimum viable product (MVP)?
• Importance and benefits of MVP for growing business
• How to set up MVP
• How businesses are using MVPs to grow
• How AI is helping SMBs with MVP
• Grow stronger with your MVP

What is minimum viable product (MVP)?

A minimum viable product (MVP) is a version of your product with core features to satisfy early adopters and get valuable feedback. It helps you learn what customers really want with minimal effort, so you can test your ideas and make improvements before launching. By showcasing your best features early, you can gather important insights and refine your product to better meet customer needs. Think of it like taking a car for a test drive before buying it.

MVP should focus on key features that solve the main customer problem. This means removing any extra features that don’t add to the value proposition. The main goal is to get feedback from real customers to learn what needs to be improved or changed. This helps you make better products based on what customers really want, not just what you think they want.

Importance and benefits of MVP for growing businesses

MVP offers benefits for innovation and scalability. In fact, 62.7% of SMB owners believe MVPs can help reduce risk. Here are the key advantages of adopting an MVP model:

Launching an MVP can validate your product idea without risking the high costs associated with full development. You can avoid overspending on unwanted features, making it a financially prudent choice. MVP can also minimize financial risk and allow for quick pivots if initial assumptions prove incorrect.

MVPs help you determine whether there’s enough demand for a product before committing to full-scale development. This ensures you’re creating a product your audience might need.

If your product shows positive demand, MVPs enable you to enter the market quickly by testing it out in the real world. The faster you test your idea, the sooner you can generate revenue or pivot based on ?customer feedback.

And, if you launch an MVP early, you can gain a competitive edge in crowded markets. Early entry will give you a chance to build laser-focused marketing strategies, establish an online presence, and build brand recognition before competitors catch up.

The MVP process is iterative, which means you’ll continuously refine and enhance your products based on ?customer input, leading to a more market-fit final product. Having an MVP demonstrates proof of concept and a strategic approach to product development. Investors are more likely to support businesses that show tangible user data and market validation from their MVPs.

How to set up your MVP

Creating a successful MVP needs a structured approach that allows you to validate your ideas. Here are the essential steps to guide you through the MVP development process:

Step 1: Plan your MVP

You need to plan for the problem you’re trying to solve, for whom, with what, and observe what your competitors are doing.

• Pinpoint the problem: It’s the foundation that you’ll build your product on. So, clearly identify the specific problem your product aims to solve.?
• Understand your audience: Create user personas that represent your ideal customers, considering both demographics and psychographics to ensure you address customer needs effectively.
• Prioritize features: List out all potential features and categorize them using methods like Must-Have, Should-Have, Could-Have, Won’t-Have (MoSCoW). Focus on the must-have features that deliver immediate value to customers.
• Avoid feature creep: Feature creep means adding excessive features to a product.? Resist that temptation to add extra features or complicated ones. Stay focused on solving the core problem.
• Analyze competitors: Understand what similar products are doing well and identify gaps in the market that your MVP can fill. Use tools like strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis to evaluate competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
• Put your feedback into action: Study reviews of your competitor’s products to uncover common complaints or unmet needs.

Step 2: Build your MVP

In this step, you’ll develop your MVP, start building your product, and perform iterations to make it better.

• Visualize your product: Create a prototype or wireframe to map out user flows and interface design. This step allows you to test ideas before full-scale development, saving time and resources.
• Build the product: Start developing your MVP based on priority features and validated designs. Keep in mind that this version should be functional enough to attract early adopters.
• Refine the product: Use an iterative approach where you continuously improve the product based on user feedback during development.

Step 3: Test and iterate

Finally, you’ll test your product in the real world, see the reactions, gather feedback, and improve the product based on that feedback.

• Test it out: Once your MVP is live, make it live to the public within your community or on platforms like Product Hunt. Offer incentives or discounts to get customers to try your MVP and give feedback. This input is invaluable for understanding how well your product meets their needs.
• Monitor metrics: Numbers are your friend here. So, track user engagement and satisfaction metrics to measure the MVP’s effectiveness.
• Iterate and refine: Use the insights gained from user feedback to make the necessary adjustments and improvements to your MVP.
• Plan to scale: Based on validated learning, outline a roadmap for enhancing features or expanding functionalities in future versions.

How businesses are using MVPs to grow

Here are some examples of how successful businesses of all sizes have used MVPs to achieve growth, along with insights into their processes:

Bring your own demand featuring Dropbox

Dropbox dropped a simple video demonstrating how the service would work, before developing its full product. This video attracted significant interest and allowed them to gauge demand before investing in development.

How Airbnb assessed market demand

Do you know how Airbnb started? The founders rented out air mattresses in their apartment during a conference in San Francisco. This simple idea tested the market for short-term rentals and helped them refine their business model.

How AI is helping SMBs with MVP

Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an important role in helping growing businesses develop and launch MVPs more efficiently and effectively. Here are a few ways AI can help you in this process:

Analyze marketing trends: AI tools can quickly analyze large datasets to identify market trends, customer preferences, and competitor activities. This can help  you make informed decisions about your MVP, ensuring it meets a real need in the market.

Gather real-time feedback: AI-powered chatbots and automated survey tools can gather information about your product, its benefits, and analyze customer feedback in real-time. You can use it to iterate and improve your MVP based on actual input, leading to a more refined final product.

Automate routine tasks: AI can automate routine tasks such as data entry, customer service, and even some aspects of marketing. Thanks to AI, you get more time to focus on core product development and innovation.

Improve customer experience with personalization: AI can help design intuitive, personalized, and customer-friendly interfaces by analyzing customer interactions. It can provide insights on how to improve customer satisfaction by making your MVP more appealing and easier to use.

Make data informed decisions: AI provides actionable insights from data, enabling you to make more informed decisions. This can lead to better product features, more effective marketing strategies, and a more successful MVP launch.

Grow stronger with your MVP

Having the knowledge about MVP and how to build them isn’t enough. You need to face the real world after it’s out there. You need to gather and manage feedback, act on it, focus on providing other post-sales services, build a team, and so much more. Start your journey with a free trial of Starter Suite today and see what a powerful tool can do for your MVP.

Looking for more customization? Explore Pro Suite. Already a Salesforce customer? As you scale, activate Foundations to try Agentforce.

AI supported the writers and editors who created this article.