We went deep into the world of digital product development, chatting with industry experts about the secrets of MVP success. They shared their experiences, shared invaluable tips, and revealed their challenges. Their insights will help you avoid common pitfalls and ensure your first product launch is a success.
Experts we spoke with include imaga's CEO, Dima Akhmetov, Eat App’s VP of Product, Joseph Boston, Viktoria Bashkite, Product Partnerships Manager, and Polina Oparina, Head of Product at Talent Inc.
A more concise version of this article was published by Khaleej Times, the UAE’s leading newspaper. To view the article on Khaleej Times, please click here.
What an MVP is and its purpose
A minimum viable product (MVP) has sufficient features to attract early adopters and validate a concept early in the development cycle. In digital industries, an MVP enables the product team to gather user feedback quickly, facilitating rapid iteration and improvement.
Eric Ries—who introduced the concept of the minimum viable product as part of his Lean Startup methodology—describes an MVP as the version of a new product that enables a team to gather the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with minimal effort.
A company might develop and release an MVP to:
- Launch a product to the market quickly.
- Test an idea with real users before committing substantial resources to full-scale development.
- Understand what resonates with the target market and what doesn’t.
By validating an idea without building the entire product, an MVP helps minimize the time and resources that might otherwise be spent on developing an unsuccessful product.
Dima Akhmetov, CEO at imaga
Over 15 years ago, Dima Akhmetov began his career as a freelancer. He started by seeking customers and outsourcing vendors, gradually building his team of freelancers.
Upon moving to New York, Dima worked as a Strategic Initiatives Program Manager on Wall Street, executing programs on Chubb, TransUnion, Bank of America, Scotia Bank, Deutsche Bank, and NYP (NewYork-Presbyterian). This resulted in a $1.5 million+ increase in cumulative ROI for his clients.
He managed a portfolio of strategic customers and was accountable for executing strategic programs for US500 BFSI. Additionally, he built a framework and cross-team processes for creating reusable use cases for the BFSI domain.
Now that we've introduced imaga's CEO, Dima Akhmetov, what advice does he have for anyone working with their MVPs?
Pay special attention to pre-MVP stages
There are several stages before reaching the MVP (Minimum Viable Product). Initially, there is the POC (Proof of Concept) stage, and even before that, there is the blueprinting stage. When developing something new, especially a new product or line of business within a large enterprise, it is essential to go through these preliminary stages. Despite significant investments, proving the idea's viability is crucial. This involves a discovery phase, vital for accurately identifying the solution's potential in the market. Whether a startup or a new venture within a large enterprise, this discovery phase is indispensable for ensuring the project's success.
Understanding the market comprehensively is crucial, which can be done by analyzing SAM, TAM, and SOM. The Total Addressable Market (TAM) is the overall size of the market for all solutions similar to yours, whether globally, regionally, nationally, or locally. The Serviceable Available Market (SAM) refers to the portion of the TAM covered by existing solutions similar to yours. Finally, the Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) is the segment of the market that your company can realistically capture if everything goes according to plan.
After conducting this basic analysis, talking to potential customers is essential. These could be companies or, in a B2C context, regular individuals. Engaging with them helps validate the idea and identify pain points. Sometimes, a company is founded to solve a problem its creators have experienced themselves. However, it’s important to quantify this pain by talking to others or conducting online research to confirm that the problem is widespread.
Strive to fail, and fail fast
One of the most important principles is being ready to fail multiple times—100 or even 1,000. He suggests not just being ready but actively striving to fail, and to fail quickly, to learn quickly. Delivering an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) should be done quickly, even if it's very raw, to gather essential feedback. While the initial attempt may be flawed, this feedback is valuable for improving the product and making subsequent versions more meaningful for the audience.
Establish a continuous loop of data gathering and analytics. This involves collecting quantitative data from analytics services and qualitative customer feedback. However, it's crucial not to take customer feedback at face value. Analyzing the data helps ensure that improvements align with customer needs, as customers may not always articulate their desires accurately. This iterative process of rapid failure, feedback, and data analysis drives meaningful product development.
Establish a continuous loop of data gathering and analytics. This involves collecting quantitative data from analytics services and qualitative customer feedback. However, it's crucial not to take customer feedback at face value. Analyzing the data helps ensure that improvements align with customer needs, as customers may not always articulate their desires accurately. This iterative process of rapid failure, feedback, and data analysis drives meaningful product development.
Early adopters will drive your MVP’s success
Acquiring early adopters is crucial. These early adopters are typically more tolerant of a product's inefficiencies because they are eager to be the first to try it. They are willing to wait for improvements and feel privileged to provide feedback. Delivering a raw product version allows these early adopters to engage with it, giving valuable insights for future enhancements.
But remember that this group represents a small percentage of the total customer base—usually around 3% to 5%. Therefore, there's no need to fear losing them, as their primary role is to help refine the product before it reaches a broader audience. Their feedback is essential for making the product more robust and appealing to the larger market.
Additionally, we spoke with 3 other experts about their experiences with MVP development. Understanding where they went right and wrong can help us better understand the essentials and avoid costly mistakes.
Joseph Boston, VP of product at Eat App
Joseph Boston primarily worked with launching mobile apps and improving after-order experiences for companies such as Talabat, Bizzle, and eTap, emphasizing transforming eTap into a product-led company and building MVPs. After speaking with Joseph, he highlighted several key factors contributing to developing your MVP effectively.
"The first thing you should do before working on an MVP is break down what it essentially is. It's a Minimum Viable Product and it should serve that purpose."
Joseph Boston
VP of product at Eat App
Understand what an MVP is
- Minimum: Keep your MVP minimal. Focus on building only the essential features needed to solve the most critical jobs for early adopters. Avoid initially targeting too wide an audience.
- Viable: Validate the product idea quickly and cost-effectively. The goal is to validate before investing too much time and resources.
- Product: Ensure the MVP is a tangible solution to a problem. It must offer a functional user experience, not just a theoretical or experimental validation.
Balance UX/UI with Functionality: An MVP should balance functionality and user experience. A poor UX/UI can deter users, making it hard to gather meaningful feedback. Aim to deliver a functional MVP with a satisfactory user experience to ensure user retention and valuable feedback.
Establish an iterative process and acquire customer feedback: Develop a continuous cycle of discovery and iteration. Engage with customers, gather feedback, and refine the product based on their needs. Validate your MVP by checking for stickiness. If users are unsatisfied or not using the product, iterate on it or reassess the approach.
Additionally, Joseph shared the challenges he faced while developing an MVP.
Understanding these pitfalls can help you avoid costly mistakes:
- Misaligned worldviews: Joseph shared his experience building a framework for sending messages across 35 countries but failed to align it with the end users' worldview. This resulted in a product that didn’t effectively meet user needs. So what’s the lesson here? Don’t build features based on your worldview. Instead, listen carefully to your users and solve their problems.
- Client vs. end-user focus: It's crucial to differentiate between the client's and end user's needs. The product should be designed to solve the end users’ problems, not just satisfy the client's vision.
Viktoria Bashkite, Product Partnerships Manager at Unifonic
Viktoria is a product enthusiast with over five years of experience in the IT field, focusing primarily on CPaaS (communication platform as a service) and SaaS (software as a service). She began her journey as a platform product manager at Katana Manufacturing, a startup providing ERP capabilities for SMEs. Since February 2022, she has been dedicated to enhancing platform capabilities as a product partnerships manager at Unifonic. Her career highlights include successful product launches, revitalizing partnerships, and presenting research on sustainability.
Viktoria holds a Doctorate in Engineering/Industrial Management and a Master’s in Industrial and Product Design from TalTech. Her doctoral thesis developed decision-making tools for evaluating and improving the lifecycle of used industrial equipment.
"Based on my experience, I've observed three distinct approaches to developing MVPs (Minimum Viable Products). The personal insight approach, pre-market validation approach, and internal understanding approach."
Viktoria Bashkite
Product Partnerships Manager at Unifonic
Pick the right MVP approach
- Personal insight approach: This method involves building a product based on personal insights and presenting it to customers once it is fully developed. While this allows for a polished initial presentation, gaining market fit may require more early user feedback.
- Pre-market validation approach: An unconventional strategy wh ere potential customers are told the product exists, even if it doesn’t, to gauge interest and gather feedback. This helps align the product closely with market demands without initial development, ensuring time and resources are spent on what customers truly need.
- Internal understanding approach: This involves developing the MVP strictly based on the team's or developer's understanding of customer needs without direct early customer involvement, speeding up the development process but risking misalignment with market expectations.
While the fundamental approach to developing an MVP remains consistent across industries, highly regulated fields require special consideration. Compliance becomes a critical part of the development process, ensuring that even the earliest version of the product meets all legal standards. This adds a layer of complexity to the process but doesn't alter the basic premise of gathering user feedback early.
Polina Oparina, Head of Product at Talent Inc.
Polina started her career as a software engineer. After a few years, she shifted her career to project management because she wanted to get closer to the key decisions being made and not only focus on delivering key initiatives. Currently, she works in a US-based company, Talent, which is in the HR tech field, creating products in the career services field.
Her current focus is B2C services, delivering value to end customers rather than business customers. Her company is in the subscription-based business, and the product she currently runs is careers.com, one of the products in the Talent Inc. portfolio.
Polina’s advice for developing an MVP
- Identify priorities before building
Before diving into creating a full-fledged product, it's essential to pinpoint the core elements. Tools like customer interviews, market research, and data analysis can help in this regard. Customer interviews offer valuable insights into identifying pain points within your target audience. Market research aids in understanding market dynamics and existing competition, which influences your MVP approach. Remember, entering a mature market with a simple MVP might not be feasible due to intense competition. - Utilize prototypes for validation
Prototypes are invaluable for validating solutions early in the development process. They allow you to test ideas without investing significant resources upfront. Whether it's design prototypes created in tools like Figma or data prototypes to test algorithmic approaches, prototypes provide actionable insights before committing to full development. - Consider partnerships or acquisitions
Partnering with or acquiring an early-stage startup can be a viable MVP strategy. This approach allows you to leverage existing solutions and infrastructure, gaining insights and feedback from real users while minimizing development costs. Engage engineers and designers early in the process to ensure alignment between product vision and technical implementation. - Leverage technology for speed and scale
In today's digital landscape, technology is pivotal in enabling business innovation and scalability. Utilize available technologies, such as open-source libraries and AI services, to accelerate product development and launch. Collaborate closely with engineers and designers to harness the full potential of these technologies and explore innovative solutions. - Establish a feedback loop
Feedback is crucial for continuous improvement and iteration. Implement tools like Hotjar to collect user feedback, conduct surveys, and analyze user behavior. Establishing a feedback loop allows you to gather actionable insights, iterate on your MVP, and deliver a product that meets user needs effectively. - Prioritize learning and customer insights
Allocate time for learning and understanding how real customers interact with your product. Engage in customer research activities, such as user interviews and observational studies, to gain valuable insights into user behavior and preferences. Continuously refine your product based on customer feedback and iterate to deliver a superior user experience.
“The biggest challenge is expecting instant success. You put in all this work, launch it, and hope for exponential growth, but in my experience, that rarely happens.”
Polina Oparina
Head of Product at Talent Inc.
You should never anticipate a smooth MVP launch
Make sure you shift away from this mindset and instead, embrace continuous learning and experimentation. Success rarely comes overnight; rather, it requires a commitment to solving specific problems and being open to testing various ideas until finding what resonates with the audience.
About imaga
imaga is your One Digital Stop, delivering cost-efficient digital business solutions as your single trusted partner. We specialize in supporting small and mid-sized businesses' digital transformation. Our mission is to empower SMEs with expertise, allowing them to concentrate on critical business initiatives while we handle their digital needs.