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Why A Minimum Viable Product Is Your MVP

Bobby Gill | April 19, 2016

 

An MVP (a minimum viable product) in the world of apps is the absolute bare minimum set of features and functionality that you need to develop in order to meet the need of your customers and test your idea in market. In less technical terms, putting together an MVP is sort of like building a sports team. Your minimum viable product is like your set of star players–your incredibly talented quarterback (or your playmaking number ten, if soccer is more your thing). With that player signed to a contract (or equivalently that killer app feature developed), then you can start to think about the rest of the roster/other app extras that will help improve your likelihood of success over time.

With your MVP launched and in-market, it is only by then looking at the stats, that companies can learn which features to add to their apps next. In other words, what would make your users’ even more satisfied and garner you new users.

The point of an MVP is that it allows you to react to what people really want–whatever that may be–instead of making something chock full of bells and whistles that they not interested in. Not only does this ensure that your app caters to them directly, but it also saves you time and money.

Additionally, it also helps to take the risk out of app development. In the current mobile app market, it’s difficult to know exactly what’s going to be a hit or not and creating an MVP gives you a chance to test your idea without making a Hail Mary pass, having to pray that it’ll reach the endzone.

How this works in large companies is that often a small team of employees will get together agreeing on some kind of hypothesis. Then, they figure out their target market and go about developing a simple app that offers a solution to test the hypothesis. If the solution doesn’t work, the small team is able to tweak and change it or scrap it entirely if need be and come up with a new hypothesis–then the cycle repeats.

The reason why minimum viable products are suited to large corporations as well as small startups is because it offers larger companies a chance to innovate. One of the biggest benefits of being a startup is that they’re nimble and can adapt to what their fans and customers want incredibly quickly.

Larger companies find it harder to innovate because there are often set processes, structure and incentives that lead to less risk taking. Therefore, in order to compete with these smaller rivals, it’s important that large companies stay nimble and the concept of an MVP can help them stay at the top of their game.

 

Blue Label Labs is a 27-person, NYC-based mobile, tablet and watch app design, development and marketing agency. We can help with everything from design and development through pre-launch marketing/PR and post-launch maintenance. We’ve partnered with enterprises, agencies and entrepreneurs to build over 90 iOS and Android apps and games.

On the sports front, most recently, we partnered with the founders of Sploops to build the first-ever video sports forum for mobile. It allows fans to broadcast their opinions and be seen and heard through 15-second video rants, interactive polling, and social sharing. While we build apps of every kind, we have a strong passion for gaming, so if anyone has a sports game they’d like to get our help with, please come find one of our representatives or email zack@bluelabellabs.com.

Bobby Gill
Co-Founder & Chief Architect at BlueLabel | + posts

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