Developing a basic version of the app based on must-have features and launching it in the market for customer validation is the idea behind a minimum viable product (MVP). This basic version helps businesses achieve product-market fit (a product that truly solves user problems) while also helping clients save money and time.

Businesses actively creating mobile apps and SaaS products rely on building and launching MVPs to gain customer feedback, which, in turn, forms the basis for further improvements and incremental development efforts.

In short, an MVP is a low-cost app version for testing user acceptance and response instead of launching a fully-fledged product in the market and realizing it didn’t address the user pain points.

But, before you start building an MVP app, here’s a guide that can help you understand the ins and outs of the concept.

What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?

A minimum viable product is a launchable and workable version of the app that supports minimum yet most-important features for customer validation. 

In simple words, an MVP app is a way to test an idea with your target audience and improve on it based on new learnings. An MVP focuses on the “just ship it” philosophy instead of waiting for the development of the entire product. 

According to Eris Reis, Author of Lean Startup, an MVP is:

The smallest thing that you can create that proves a single premise through validated learning. It should be high quality because, if your premise is correct, you need to incrementally build it out.

The new features are built and integrated into the app based on customer feedback and their expectations from it. Alongside, improvements in the developed features are also made based on initial customer response. 
Sometimes the mobile app developers write messy code in a hurry to launch an MVP, which, in turn, leads to technical debt. This tech debt further leads to the extra cost of rework later. Thus it is suggested to maintain a clean code that can be easily refactored in future iterations.

What is an Example of a Minimum Viable Product?

When Facebook was initially launched, it was a basic version where the users could create an account and connect with their friends. 

With time, they observed the user behavior and introduced improvements to the already existing features, and also developed new features that the users would love and accept.

Another example can be that of Airbnb’s solid MVP. The founders of the app had a real user problem to solve for — managing house rents and offering an alternative to expensive hotel rooms.

Their assumption of letting people choose a personal apartment on rent over a hotel room seemed risky initially. They decided to build on the MVP, which included — one demographic setting to check people’s interest and likeability of the idea and yes it worked big time for this $30 billion company now.

Benefits of MVP

It is a recommended practice to consider MVP app development before building a fully-fledged app:

Gather feedback from early adopters

The initial installers of the app are first of your customers, and if they like what it offers — there are good chances of developing customer loyalty down the line. 

These initial adopters are your true critics who will help you improve on your MVP. 

The right approach to gather their feedback is to:

• Build Public Trello Boards to seek suggestions
• Aggressive marketing campaigns across social media platforms where you can also seek suggestions and ask for feedback in the comment section
• Reach out the early adopters through emails and request them for a feedback
• Post app-based surveys across social media and even send them through mails

To enable faster time to market and gain competitive advantage

MVP is faster to build as it accommodates only a few but the most essential features. It offers a chance to enter the market early and see how the target audience responds to the app. 

Suppose you ignore building an MVP for your out-of-the-box idea. Now what if your competitor who is also working on the nearly same idea chooses to build and launch an MVP.

You will lose on the competitive edge here along with wasting all your resources spent on development so far, which is why building an MVP is considered. On the one hand, you will be first in the market to launch such an app while you have an opportunity to grow based on customer feedback and suggestions.

Save on investments

Spending thousands and millions of dollars on app development and realizing it didn’t attract the customer attention is catastrophic. 

However, if you build an MVP that costs low in terms of — money, efforts, time, and other resources — you will be on a safer side. 

It is always cheaper to build a minimum viable product that supports minimal features and requires less of other resources needed.

Ensure product-market fit

An app achieves a product-market fit when it truly addresses the user problems and delights them. If you have a product-market fit, word-of-mouth marketing happens on its own, i.e., people will talk about your app and will market it by recommending it to their friends and family.

With an MVP, you have an opportunity to achieve this product-market fit early. Moreover an early product-market fit would mean an increased demand of the fully-fledged product and large amount of incoming feedback that needs to be worked upon.

Gain quality feedback that fuels further iterations

Not all feedback is worth considering. You will have to filter out the feedback and narrow down the ones that will add value to the app. 

If a user is recommending a change to one part of the experience, you will have to run various tests (user testing and acceptance testing) to ensure it really is a problem. If it is — you can iterate through the MVP, or you can consider giving that recommendation a pass. 

The primary objective is to pick on quality feedback and improve the MVP across iterations. 

A study conducted by CB Insights helps understand why startup products fail that directly correlates with the importance of building an MVP.

Why Products Fail?

PoC Vs Prototype vs MVP

Before moving ahead with MVP app development, it is imperative to understand how Poc, Prototype, and MVP are different from each other.

What is a PoC (Proof of Concept)?

When you have an untried idea for a software product, you need to check its feasibility — whether it will be implementable from a technical perspective or not. 

Thus, a proof of concept is an evidence that your app idea can be converted into reality.  
Note: If the idea is feasible, you can move ahead with developing the prototype. In case there is an existing app in the market that works on a similar idea as yours, you can skip creating a PoC.

What is a Prototype?

A prototype is a primitive version of the app. 

A prototype is a skeleton version of the app that helps you visualize how it will look and feel. It helps validate the UX/UI flow. You can present the prototype to the stakeholders and the seed investors. 

In other words, a prototype is a half-baked version of the app to help you visualize how the flow of the user interface elements will look like and check whether it promotes usability.

What is an MVP?

A minimum viable product is a basic-version app built with minimum features (such as your out-of-box idea) and is launchable in the market. Building an MVP is only considered after the PoC and prototype are built. 

How to Build an MVP?

Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you build an MVP:

Market Research

Market research is part of requirements gathering and prioritization. This is where the idea behind the app and its features are discussed. Does your app solve a user problem? If yes, how does it intend to do so? 

For effective market research, you need to:

• Conduct user-oriented surveys: This will help understand the day-to-day problems of your target audience with respect to what you are planning to offer. A survey will also help figure out whether there is a market need for your app.
• Competitor Research: In case you are replicating an idea, competitor analysis will help you understand what your competitors are offering and how you can address the problems with the already existing app. 

Strategize Around Must-Haves

According to the MoSCoW rule of prioritization, there are four different ways to prioritize requirements. These include:

• Must Haves: The app features that hold utmost priority and should be part of the MVP. These features are the foundation of your app and define it when it steps out in the market. 
• Should Haves: These features are essential, but can be skipped from the MVP app development process. Should-have features are picked once the MVP is launched in the market.
• Could Haves: These are the app features that could add value to it but are not necessary and thus can be skipped from the development process. The inclusion of these features depends on the budget and the suggested delivery timelines.
• Won’t Haves: These features do not add value to the app and can be skipped altogether. Won’t have features are either eliminated from the features list or are left for later stages of development.

For your MVP to be a success, you need to prioritize the must-have features so that it defines your USP (Unique Selling Point) the best and helps you achieve an early product-market fit.

Build a PoC

Build a proof of concept if you are trying to experiment with an out-of-box idea. This new idea would have to be tested to validate its technical feasibility. 

This will help you answer whether the idea is practical and implementable or not. The development team builds a mock-up of the app to see how closely the idea can be mapped into a workable solution. 

Work on the Prototype

Once the PoC is developed, move on with developing a prototype that validates the UX/UI flow of the app. 

A prototype helps visualize the user interface and user experience to check whether it is user-friendly, intuitive, clean, responsive, and interactive. It also helps attract seed funding for your app in earlier stages of development.

A prototype also helps the designers and the developers have a crystal clear idea of their way forward. If the prototype does not solve the purpose and requires attention — you would have to ask the design team to iterate through the suggestions to make it visually appealing and usable at the same time. 

Design, Develop, Test, Iterate, Integrate, and Deliver

If the prototype is accepted and acknowledged, you can consider moving on with its full-scale development. This is a holistic process where the development team focuses on:

• Design: The app’s UI/UX is designed based on the approved prototype
• Develop: The app features are developed based on prioritized must-have features
• Test: The developed features are unit tested. In case a bug appears, the changes are sent back to the development team to consider
• Iterate: The mobile app developers work on removing the bug fixtures. The development team then sends it back to the testing team for a retest. The cycle continues until all the features are ready for delivery and are bug-less.
• System Integration: The developers conduct system integration, i.e., they integrate the developed features to create one whole system that performs as per expectations. The testers also participate here to test the wholeness of the system and its behavior once all the features are combined.
• Deliver: The features are then delivered to the operations team, which then takes over the job to launch the MVP version of the app in the live environment

Launch

The minimum viable product is launched in the live environment, which then can be accessed by all. It is the first baby step that your app takes as it waits for acceptance from customers.

Following the launch, marketing activities can be conducted to let your target audience know about the app. Based on their initial feedback — the further refinements are made, which in turn, shape the fully-fledged app launched later. 

What is the Cost of Building an MVP?

The cost of building the minimum viable product depends on the complexity of its features and the development team (in case you outsource).

However, it can range from $5000 to $50,000 for a mobile app. The cost is expected to escalate if you hire an in-house team considering their payouts, infrastructure costs, and tools used. This is why outsourcing is a cheaper option compared to i-house development.

From a practical perspective — the cost of an MVP is variable and depends on whom you hire for the job. 

MVP Development Best Practices

Here are some best practices for developing an MVP:

• Develop a good understanding of your target audience, i.e., their needs, desires, expectations from the app. The app needs to be solving a problem they have been facing
• Consider a development methodology that offers the most value. For instance, you could consider lean development methodology as it offers reduction in lead time, increases productivity, and also manages the changing user needs in a planned manner.
• Do not go overboard with the MVP. Focus on only the must-have features, i.e, the features that make your app stand out
• Communication and collaboration should be a priority to ensure everyone (stakeholders, managers, and the development team) is on the same page from day one
• Believe in the “Just Ship It” philosophy. Do not wait for the right time to launch the MVP as you will be at a high risk of getting outcompeted
• Ensure that the app is not built on obsolete technology. Keep a track of the latest app development trends and app ideas in the market. For example, experimenting with AI (Artificial intelligence) and machine learning can be considered keeping the current trends in mind
• Do not miss on marketing. An effective marketing strategy will help you attract more users to the MVP-driven app.

Conclusion

A minimum viable product is a cheap way to test your app idea with your target audience. The biggest advantage is that you do not have to wait to develop and launch a fully-fledged app to check its acceptability. 

This blog covers everything about an MVP such as — what is an MVP, its benefits, process, cost of building, and development best practices. 

If you consider all the aspects of an MVP, your app could be a success, which will, in turn, will lead to word-of-mouth marketing. 

Even if it is minimal, make sure it has everything your audience wants.

Over the last few years, e-commerce has become an indispensable part of the global retail framework. Like many other industries, the retail landscape has undergone a substantial transformation following the advent of the internet. Even the Covid-19 pandemic has caused the situation of offline stores to witness rapid change. The need for social distancing has led restaurants, bars, movie theatres, and gyms globally to shut down. In these unprecedented times, people and brands are coming to terms with the realities of our interconnected world. The E-commerce website is growing at a rapid rate all over the globe. There may be as many as 2.14 billion digital buyers worldwide by 2021. It is expected that by 2040, 95% of all purchases will be via an e-commerce website. Now is the best time to take your business from brick-and-mortar stores to the online realm. 

With the growth of e-commerce, business owners who used to operate their businesses through conventional means are now deciding to make a transition to the digital world. The online presence of e-commerce stores could be a huge game-changer and improve efficiency, increasing reach, and boosting profits.

Choose the right website hosting platform for e-commerce website

To take your business online, stores need to claim a domain for their store and choose a website hosting platform along with a CMS platform (Content Management System). To choose the right website host, the person needs to choose between individual plans, reseller accounts, and dedicated servers. One needs to analyze all given option and find the one who meets their business needs. For those alien to the technical world and don’t have the coding skills, a fully-hosted provider proves to be a wise option. Several platforms enable its customers to get their store up and running with limited technical know-how. Many hosted platforms offer easy drag-and-drop capabilities. This has proven to be an excellent choice for non-techie entrepreneurs who do not want to outsource their website building. These platforms have built-in inventory management, templates, marketing, sales, and reporting features.

For store owners looking for value flexibility and want to implement highly customized designs or features, an open-source platform might be a better option. Just be sure to budget time and money for hosting and development.

Here are a few important things retailers can keep in mind before researching their  hosting option for their e-commerce website:

1. Security in terms of online/card payments on that particular server
2. Availability of Customer support 
3. Maintenance Cost 
4. The storage capacity of the Server 
5. Additional Costs and Support

Give your brand a digital realm

All the companies flourishing within the e-commerce market, have embraced their presence in the virtual world through effective digital strategies. This has helped in attracting the audience. Digital Marketers have been continuously levelling up their ways to help brands gain some online presence. Brands have been trying to expand their reach by serving ads to new audiences. In addition to that, stores and brands can also try reinforcing branding initiatives within their currently defined target segments.

Even through digital marketing, stores can incorporate elements that help in their brand recognition. For example, usage of logo and colour scheme along with brand style and segregation of collections. An authentic-looking website with appropriate customization appeals to potential buyers and showcases your brand in the best light.

Having an e-commerce portal in the form of a website should be easy to recall and associate with brands. Choosing the right colour and consistent design and logo will stir your audience’s feelings. It is important to put in the effort to create a brand that’s different from the others. Even small business owners are now more inclined to create an online presence. This will help them create a brand presence. Online competition grows tougher every day, and having a good brand will help your business get noticed. 

Some customers prefer evaluating products in real life together with the brand’s staff. For them ordering the product online is not the same. A common way of mimicking this interaction online is by using a chatbot. An automated response that will welcome the visitors, and using AI technology will be available to answer their questions. Although these chatbots can’t fully replace a real person, statistics show that both proactive and reactive chat tools can help increase the credibility of your store. They also provide valuable feedback from customers.

Consider how to sell product or service online

As internet access and adoption are rapidly increasing worldwide, the number of digital buyers keeps climbing every year. In 2019, an estimated 1.92 billion people purchased goods or services online. The same year, e-retail sales surpassed 3.5 trillion U.S. dollars worldwide. 

If you are thinking of selling online on your website, consider the following: 

1. The type and number of products you want to sell online.
2. Whether selling online will make up a significant portion of your sales.
3. Customer needs and preferences. 

To sell a product or service online, you need to orient your product in what your target customer wants the most. Qualitative market research can be more helpful than quantitative because it provides insight and helps to understand what the customer thinks. Information such as digital buyers is more likely to spend more if they are provided with free shipping. Also, the top reason why people make online purchases is that they can shop whenever they want, 24/7. The research will help you understand that e-commerce store designs go much further than an eye-catching design. Attractive product imagery and detailed descriptions will help customers buy with confidence. Customer’s buying behaviours are motivated by these thoughts and feelings. 

For service providers going digital, it is important to adapt to the environment and needs of the customer. Urban Company earlier known as Urban Clap has recently witnessed an uptick in the demand for home cleaning and hygiene services as people are becoming more health-conscious. The successful transition and modified marketing strategy during the Covid-19 pandemic have made the app quite popular for its home repair and salon services. Urban Company understood the need of the hour and made sure to start communicating every day about the changes it introduced in its services and SOPs.

Plan for customer service

Customer-centric is a business strategy that’s based on putting your customer first and at the core of your business to provide a positive experience and build long-term relationships.

• 78% of customers have backed out of purchase due to poor customer experience.
• 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies who offer excellent customer service.
• 77% of customers would recommend a brand to a friend after having a single positive experience.
• 73% of customers fall in love with a brand and remain loyal because of friendly customer service reps.

This often results in building brand loyalty and reliability on customers’ part.

Complaint Management and Customer Support and an integral part of customer service. Offering customized solutions to frequently reported problems helps to build trust in your brands, and services utilized from brands. This tends to create customer chains thus boosting sales, performance, and customer engagement. It also results in positive public reviews that drive more traffic to your store. Your customers need to be comfortable reaching out to you to establish a deeper connection.

In the changing world of post-COVID, it is a wise choice to introduce your mobile app for customers to access the services/products as per their convenience to place and time.

According to different studies, having your business app in the customer devices will register your brand on their memories and this induces them to make purchasing decisions whenever they open the app.

Mobile Application if developed and marketed right can be the leading factor in exponential growth or a brand or company.

Create a great delivery experience for your e-commerce website

Immediately after orders start coming in, stores and brands need to be prepared on how to fulfil and deliver them. Shipping is a key part of your business, so it’s a priority. One can manage delivery themselves or can work with a third-party system for online order fulfillment. Outsourcing the deliveries to 3rd party companies would result in reducing your workload. With the steep competition, the smooth delivery service is an impeccable way to deepen relationships with customers. From the moment customers are exposed to your brand until the product is delivered, businesses should intently be focused on cultivating a powerful and positive experience.

Things to do to improve the delivery experience for your customer

1. Keep Customers Informed
2. Consider the Unboxing Experience
3. Include Bonuses the Customer Isn’t Expecting
4. Insert a Handwritten Notes

Managing delivery yourself

Delivering can be tricky and complex when managed on your own. The entire operation of processing and shipping logistics needs to be broken down to be made manageable. For example – what rate and criteria affecting shipping charges or circumstances happen to be apt for free delivery. One also needs to determine the radius of your delivery zone. Along with these the store also needs to take care of packaging, labelling, and tracking of the parcel. Separate care needs to be taken in case of a scenario involving the return or exchange of the product.

Working with a third-party order processing and shipping platform

Third-party shipping involves you sending your inventory to a fulfilment centre. When a customer purchases a product from your website, you inform the fulfilment party who delivers the product to the customer. This helps in reducing labour costs and taxes associated with order fulfilment. Lower packing material costs, since fulfilment services, may have better prices.

Basic things to ensure while doing UI/UX of an E-Commerce website

A well-designed and visually pleasing website is what attracts potential customers. Clean, simple, user-friendly websites provide customers with a sense of security that gives them the confidence to do business. It is often noticed that when websites are cluttered, they become difficult to navigate and frustrate users. Thus often causing customers to bounce as quickly as they landed. Sites that are cluttered with too much information or are “over-designed” are a turn-off to customers. 

The most important part of your website is your landing page, which needs to be optimized for conversions. While incorporating an online store it is important to get the highest quality web design, since an attractive website will generate high income. When designing an e-commerce website, it is important to focus on usability and readability. Focus on arranging elements to make sites as user-friendly as possible. A clean store makes it easier for shoppers to do their shopping. This encourages shoppers to browse a bit longer and make a few more purchases.

Here are a few things you can do to improve your e-commerce website design

• Eliminate excess text. 

• Focus on using images, slideshows, and videos to demonstrate product details. Videos can dramatically affect the number of visitors to your website and the number of conversions you will get. 46% of people are likely to purchase if they have seen a video or demo of the product first. 

• Simplify the navigation. Just like for an in-store shopper. Make it easy for the customers to navigate for what they are looking for.

Importance of social media, content marketing, and SEO

Social Media – With more users spending time on social media handles such as Instagram and Facebook, having a presence over these platforms can lead to the utmost growth for the businesses. According to current projections, 90% of businesses use some form of social media for customer service in the coming two years. Social media plays an excellent medium to connect with your customers and increase brand presence. By directly engaging with customers through activities such as posts, comments, and tags, stores can gain consumer trust and interest to a large extent. Social media is important in regards to creating shareable content that your audience will share with their networks. It helps to bring new consumers to your website hence increasing popularity.

Content Writing – E-commerce website today regularly use content marketing to increase their brand recognition and impact their overall web presence. Statistically speaking – 

60% of consumers like to read relevant content from the brands.

82% of consumers feel better about reading content.

70% of consumers feel closer to the company as a result of content marketing.

78% of consumers perceive a relationship between themselves and a company using custom content.

90% of consumers find custom content useful.

Search engine optimization (SEO) – Brands and stores need to publish content that’s optimized to drive organic traffic to their e-commerce website. Investing in search engine optimization (SEO) will pay for itself over the long run. SEO value is one of the biggest benefits of content marketing for any industry. When you create original content, like blog posts and infographics, you can insert keywords that will help your content achieve top results in search engine results pages (SERPs). Research on high ranking keywords related to the product, and use them throughout your content to boost your organic rankings.

Make the most of the internet

The e-commerce website provides stores with an incredible opportunity to build itself as a trusted online brand. With every interaction, your business has with the customer trust that needs to be built. Small businesses can include customer testimonials and reviews on their website regarding their experiences. Around 55% of all online shoppers said that online reviews have an impact on their buying decisions. Quick suggestions can encourage online purchases and repeat purchases. Collaboration with brands and other offers can also make a good selling point. Use the internet to keep a track of your competitors and their work. Plan your business strategy accordingly.

Planning For The Holiday Season is another way businesses can leverage to increase their sales. Sales, coupons, and promotional codes will help in attracting customers during festive seasons. A well-planned campaign can be a lot more profitable than a hastily executed promotional event.

By 2022, e-commerce revenue in the U.S alone is expected to reach $638 million, with the toys, hobby, and DIY vertical seeing the largest growth. With the help of automation and rich customer profiles, you can deliver highly personalised online experiences for your e-commerce customers. Showcasing relevant products based on past purchase behaviour, for example, can lead to higher AOV and makes the shopper feel like you truly understand him/her as an individual.

E-commerce is the future but can still learn from brick and mortar stores

E-commerce industry expert Gary Hoover’s data projects suggest e-commerce retail sales will eventually even out with that of brick and mortar. One can conclude that, even though the online sales trend will continue to grow, there’s plenty of business to go around.

Research predicts that the future of e-commerce is a bright one. But, though the E-commerce world can expect abundant modification in its working such as robust customer journeys and personalization, Artificial intelligence-enabled shopping, and Digital currencies there are fairly a lot of things it can learn from the traditional brick and mortar way. One such thing is giving the customer personalized attention. This can be done by using a chatbot that welcomes visitors and is available to answer questions. Statistics show that both proactive and reactive chat tools can help increase the credibility of your store and provide valuable feedback from customers.

E-commerce stores have a long way to go in terms of recreating the offline experience and establishing a long-standing relationship with its customers. The future holds endless opportunities for service in the digital realm, but its success and continuation will largely depend on buyers’ preferences in the future.

Building an e-commerce website

Now that we’ve seen the need for an e-commerce website with the change of trends. The question that arises is how to create online stores without experiencing much hassle. Our company, Yati Labs unlike, a lot of website builders isn’t just a company for outsourcing digital service. We are makers of digital products and experiences for startups, enterprises and forward-looking brands. We can help your business develop an e-commerce website with a tailor-made solution that could scale and handle mammoth transactions. The web is ever-evolving, flexible & ubiquitous. We ensure that web applications surpass users expectations in the mobile age, including accessibility and responsive design.

To reach out to us, you can easily book a free consultation with our business experts. We look forward to discussing the future with you.