Product Ideation 101: The Ultimate Guide to Identifying Your MVP

In today’s fast-paced and competitive market, launching a fully-featured product can be a risky and costly endeavour. That’s why the concept of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) has gained so much attention and importance in recent years.

While there is no argument that defining your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is one of the most critical milestones during product planning,  it poses a bigger question – “How do I identify the MVP for my product idea?”

7 Steps to Building a Successful Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

Identifying the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for your product involves understanding the core features that are necessary to launch and validate your product idea. Here are some steps that can help you identify the MVP for your product:

• Define the Problem

“Why are you doing this?”. Clearly define the problem your product is solving for the targeted audience. This will help you understand the essential features that your product must have to address the core problem. Read more about ‘Defining the problem’, its importance and the steps involved through our blog. 

• Identify Core Features

When we have the problem defined accurately, it becomes exponentially easy to identify how we will solve it. This is when we make a list of all the functionality and features that solve our problem. 

NEVER  lose sight of the problem in this process. This also the area where most get carried away and add ‘good to have’ features along with ‘must have’ features, thereby bloating the scope. 

I have seen this happen time and again when the problem statement itself is changed only to accommodate a really ‘cool’ feature. However, it is time to prioritise these features based on their importance to the core functionality of the product.

• Validate the Features 

What is a feature good for if it is only on paper and cannot be implemented?

In order to ensure that our features have the potential to become reality, it’s important to test them by creating a Proof of Concept to validate their usefulness and usability. 

This is the very heart of our product. It is at this stage that our feedback loop is initiated from potential users to identify which features are essential and which ones can be omitted or delayed for future versions. This helps in prioritising the features and making the MVP even more lean, when required.

• Determine the Scope

Based on the feedback and the prioritised features, determine the scope of your MVP. The MVP is a list of all the big and small sets of features that provide value to your target audience.

At this stage it is critical to remind yourselves of the problem you are trying to solve. Revalidate the scope if needed. This is the scope that we then take to our analysts for defining in order for designers to visualise and developers to execute.

• Define Success Metrics

Once our scope is determined, we need to ensure that the definition of the same is S.M.A.R.T. 

SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. In order to ensure that our scope adds value to our vision we must also define the success metrics that you will use to measure the impact of your MVP. These metrics should be aligned with your business goals and the problem you are trying to solve.

• Develop the Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

Once you have identified the core features and the scope of your MVP, start developing it. Focus on the essential features and prioritise speed over perfection. Remember done is better than perfect. The goal is to launch the product as quickly as possible to validate your assumptions.

• Launch and Iterate

This is the most important step that is often ignored by brands. Only your real customers can validate and teach you what they need from your product.

Launch your MVP and gather feedback from your users.Tie the feedback loop back in here. Use this feedback to iterate and improve the product. Keep iterating until you achieve product-market fit.

 

Tools and Resources for Building an Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

1. Canva – Use Canva to create simple and effective designs for your MVP. You can create visual aids for your pitch deck, social media graphics, logos, and other design elements that help you communicate your product idea to potential customers and investors. 
2. Trello – Use Trello to create boards, lists, and cards that represent different stages of your MVP development process. You can also assign tasks, add due dates, and collaborate with your team members in real-time. 
3. Figma – Use Figma to create wireframes and prototypes for your MVP. You can create and share designs in real-time, collaborate with your team, and test your product with real users. Figma also offers a library of UI components, templates, and plugins that allow you to streamline your design process and create high-fidelity prototypes quickly.
4. Mailchimp – Gather feedback and validate your MVP by sending targeted emails to your audience with Mailchimp, an email marketing platform. You can create email campaigns, automate your email marketing, and track your email engagement metrics.
5. Google Analytics – With Google Analytics, you can track your website traffic, user demographics, user behaviour, and other key metrics that help you understand how users interact with your product. You can use this data to make data-driven decisions, identify areas of improvement, and optimise your product for better performance.

By following these steps and using the right tools, you can accelerate identifying the MVP for your product and launch it quickly. Remember that the MVP is just the beginning of your product journey. It is a starting point, and you will need to continue iterating and improving your product to meet the evolving needs of your users.

For more information and insights on product discovery, product planning and more, check out our blogs blogs here.