#mvp developer

Fractional CTO and MVP Developer

Fractional CTO and MVP Developer

Mobile apps are quite the buzz around the business world these days. With countless mobile apps in the market, you can’t be too hopeful that the users should get tempted with your app idea and pick it over other. To counter this fear, you can depend on the MVP (Minimum Viable Product).

Every startup, that heads for a mobile app, needs to go through a considerable amount of brainstorming before landing a successful app.

According to Statista, “In 2017, consumers downloaded 178.1 billion mobile apps to their connected devices. In 2022, this figure is expected to grow to 258.2 billion app downloads.”

There are two alternatives while considering mobile app development. One is a traditional approach and other is the minimum viable product (MVP) approach.

Building a Mobile App with the Traditional Approach

One of the most traditional approaches in mobile app development is the waterfall approach, where the development team follows a process – initiation, analysis, design, development, testing, and deployment. However, there were loopholes like a rigid process, poor testing with bug issues, and slow-paced app delivery.

In such cases, you should hire a dedicated and experienced team for mobile app development. Though you spend loads of cash and time, yet the success of your app is not guaranteed.

Building a Mobile App with the MVP Approach

An ideal way to deal with the shortcomings of the traditional approach is MVP. It is considered as the best approach for newbies as well as established companies to test their app idea with customers.

MVP includes only those features as you think are the most important and remarkable. In this case, the whole development process would take less time and money. The business app that takes around 6 months to reach market could take only around a month and a half.

Why Choose MVP Development for Startups?

Smart businesses use an MVP mobile app in their initial stage to run a successful project. It offers a faster time to market and better user experience, that further gives an opportunity to test the capability of a project.

Here are some of the reasons explaining why you need to choose MVP development for your business.

Lets You Know Your Persona

Knowing the success rate of your idea at the initial phase can spare you thousands of dollars and let you win billions. Launch an MVP for your product idea among the identified group of users and you can know your target audience for your product.

Helps Check the App’s Performance

With MVP, you can check and rate the performance of your app. The mobile app developer can test their ability in delivering the expected output. You can even test whether the development process is moving in the right direction by utilizing the latest trends and technology.

Lowers Development Costs

When it comes to app development, it requires some kind of investment. The more complicated or feature-rich the app, the more the expenditure and vice versa. But, building up an MVP mobile app requires fewer resources, lesser time, and lesser money. If you search for MVP cost on Google, you’ll find that the figures are affordable and cost-effective. And, in case of MVP fails, your losses will be low.

Fixes Security Issues

If the app has some security issues, you can identify and resolve them with the help of MVP. When issues fixed at an initial level, the app remains bug-free and increases conversion rate. This leads to happy customers.

Facilitates User Expectation Analysis

MVP merges within the mobile app analytics tool to analyze app performance. This helps you know which users are using your app, what features they love to use, what they love to search, and how they engage with the app. Based on these activities, you can modify and execute mobile app ideas.

Enables You to Develop a Better Version of the App

Launching an MVP of the app means that the brand is connecting their idea with users. The feedback thus received, gives the confidence to trust the app idea, analyze users’ needs, and build or launch a product that becomes a hit in the market.

Points to Remember During MVP Development

Simplify the Features

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”~ E. F. Schumacher

You have to decide the most important set of features, like which are important and which are not. It’s easy to understand the uniqueness of various features when you assess them on a scale of 1 to 10, including the significance of this element for the item, the complication of its execution, and its value to the user.

Make the Right Decision

The level of competition is very high in the App Store and Google Play. As new apps enter the market every single day, it is quite mind-boggling for developers to make their app outstanding. So, always think thrice while choosing qualified mobile app developers for your MVP to ensure the success of your product.

Do the Final Check before Release

To ensure that your MVP app is working, give some time to troubleshoot. Test the beta version of your mobile app with your friends and family. They will enable you to check whether or not the app is working fine. In case all is well, congratulations! Your MVP app is ready to launch.

Big Players that Started With MVP

You can derive inspiration from some of the big players of today, who launched a successful MVP before they went big. Here are some interesting examples:

Dropbox

Dropbox started as an easy-to-use file sharing tool. The team started with a simple website. The website, instead of launching an MVP product, launched a 3-minute introductory video, explaining how simple it is to share files across devices. This resulted in increased signups, from 5,000 to 75,000.

Airbnb

Airbnb was a unique concept, started in 2007 by Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, wherein they helped people rent their accommodation at a reasonable price around the world. Airbnb helps connect those who need to travel with those who are ready to rent their accommodation around the world.

The app was first based on an MVP, where all the basic work was done manually.  Soon the app gained a global success and is expected to raise $10 billion listings by the year 2020.

Uber

The cab-booking app, Uber, began its underlying journey with the MVP launch. In its first version, Uber focused on building a link between the drivers and the customers. They also offer the ability to accept payments through cash, credit cards, debit cards, and mobile wallets.

This helped Uber enter the market quickly, receive feedback, and progressively make a multi-billion dollar business. Today, Uber is a world-famous app, offering taxi services with a plethora of advanced features.

LinkedIn

Another great example of a successful product, that started with MVP is, LinkedIn. Launched in 2003 with MVP, LinkedIn had few features like profile creation, inviting users, searching for users, and a summary page of your connections. Later on, as the network started growing, many features included advanced people finder,  writing recommendations and endorsements, adding work examples, images, videos, etc.

You Nailed your MVP! What’s Next?

Done with the development of the first version of your app? It’s time to launch the product now. The actual work starts when you have to understand how effective your idea is. It is important to use analytics and capture information to settle on smart decision-making.

As a rule, if you receive more negative feedback than positive, doesn’t mean that the product has failed. Indeed, the practicality of the app is reflected more by statistics rather than by customer reviews. The most difficult part here is to figure out how to avail the information you have and what changes you need to make in your product to enhance it.

Final Thoughts

MVP is an approach that empowers you to discover a lot about your users with the help of a working app, without overspending valuable time and funds. All you need is to plan your business hypothesis, identify the main features, and know your target audience. Also, choose a good mobile app development company with the right technology for your next MVP project.