The concept of the “minimum viable product” is one of the most vital strategies for building a sustainable start-up. It’s an approach to business that stresses constant iteration and testing of ideas. A product that doesn’t change is a finished product, and a finished product isn’t a viable business. If you’re new to the world of entrepreneurship, the word “minimum” might sound like you are not adding value. However, this is far from the truth. It actually means developing a product that people will want to use. Why is this concept so important? Because it forces you to build a product that serves a clear need, instead of one that’s just for your own benefit. Let’s take a look at the case for why you should go minimal with your product development, and how.

What is a Minimum Viable Product?

A minimum viable product (MVP) is a version of your product that has just enough value to test the market. It’s a quick and dirty prototype that minimizes your risk. You can use any method for developing an MVP, from paper and pencil to a simple website. But the goal is to test the market, not invent the product. An example of this is my pet project, Collectr.io. The very first version was built in 2 hours and shared with friends to start gathering feedback.

Why Build a Minimum Viable Product?

The goal of a minimum viable product is to test the market to see if there is a need for your product. If people actually want what you’re making, you can spend more and build out the product into something more robust. If you build a huge, fully-featured product with no market need, you’re just creating a big waste of time and money. One thing that many first time entrepreneurs do is assume that you have to have a lot of features for potential customers to have value. This is wrong. Identifying the need and solving the most critical problem is the key. This will be the starting point around which you can build all of the necessary features to continue to provide value to your customers.

Strategies for Building a Minimum Viable Product

The most important thing to realise about building a minimum viable product is that you should be building the minimum. Keep the scope of your product limited, and constantly test the market to see what needs you’re filling.

Think of an early user as your mentor

The best way to figure out what you should build next is to talk to your customers, as they’re the ones using your product. Asking questions and getting input from your early users is a great strategy for figuring out what you should build next. With Collectr.io, the first iteration was a simple static list of links, it wasn’t very pretty but I hoped it would be useful to my network.

Iterate, Iterate, Iterate

The best way to test your ideas is to quickly make changes to your product. It’s not feasible or productive to build a full v1 with all the features you may want to add at some point. Remember, you don’t know what you don’t know and it is necessary to discover these things as you go and adjust your product to match. Collectr’s iteration has continued. First, improving the UI and ensuring that it works correctly on mobile.

Make your MVP public

It can be a little scary to share your MVP with others. But it’s an important step to invite feedback and get real, honest input. After sharing it, I was quickly given some feedback and some feature requests. These have been taken into consideration and will be part of a future release.

Build First, Test Later

Build your MVP and share it with potential customers and investors. This will force you to think about your product and what you want to build.

Don’t over-engineer without need

This is the most important tip for building a minimalist product. If you start building features that don’t bring value to your customers, you’ll end up building something that’s of no use to them. And it will cost you money!

Avoid Over-Engineering Without Need

Although it’s tempting to add more and more features that don’t have a clear value, you should resist the urge to over-engineer without need. This means designing features that add value to your customers but don’t have to be built from the ground up. You don’t have to build something if there is a tool that provides the same functionality and can quickly fill a need for your customers. There are a lot of risks involved with building features blindly. Only build when you are sure it will be useful.

Conclusion

Many businesses fail before they even get going by making assumptions about their customers and what they will want out of their products. Don’t fall into this trap. Design the smallest test that will determine if your product will provide value to your customers. I’ve used the word “value” a lot in this article but it is extremely important that you solve a problem for your customers. To do this, get your MVP out and build on that.