What is an MVP? (Definition, Benefits & Examples of Minimum Viable Product)

[Music] hi everyone alvin here from real lab academy today i'm going to talk to you about minimum viable product what is it i'm going to talk about the definition here in a very simple way uh the benefits of a minimum viable product or people call this mvp so if you hear the word mvp in the tech world or if you're working in digital then this is what it means exactly and also some of the examples of mvp and how it has you know made some companies really huge and successful so let's talk about it so

what is an mvp an mvp is a product with the minimum set of features to attract early users and validate the ideas of the product in the initial phase [Music] in within the product development cycle so a lot of the times an mvp is being used to just test an idea uh because a startup might have you know a set of different features that they wanted to go in and say this is our product this is what we want to do and mvp just allows them to focus on potentially that killer feature that they're that

they think is the main point of differentiation of their product and go out to test the market and have real users actually you know download the app or sign up and actually use the feature to give them feedback uh and this oftentimes gives product startups products or startups or teams a good understanding on an appetite and what the market wants or needs or whether or not it resonates to what the market wants so that's what an mvp is essentially so let's look at the reasons on why does one company want to build an mvp or

why should you build an nvp number one is to release the product in the market sooner rather than finishing up all 10 features or the grand vision you focus on one or two key features and it allows you to go to the market sooner rather than later number two is also to test the concept with users before further investment so startups might have rounds of investments and if you know like to achieve all of those 10 features that i mentioned earlier will take them three years to do uh in by having an mvp they get

to focus on the most important thing and be able to go out and prove that their idea has you know merit in the market and that allows them to go to investors and have them further invest in the next rounds or the next seed rounds potentially the third thing is to learn what's resonating with the market and what's not so what's very important is for you to understand if your idea is not working then you might you might really want to know as soon as possible rather than later a lot of startups out there fail

because they're trying to invest so much time to perfect their product but once it goes out no one downloads it and no one wants to use it because the market hasn't really seen it and it comes in as a surprise and you know by you know in the course of a year or two they've invested so much money time effort and resources and all of that and that's why a lot of companies or startups go bankrupt because they've spent way too much time in the development cycle without involving the user so it's important to know

what's resonating and what's not and finally the other reason is to minimize the resources and time that would otherwise be spent on developing a product that won't sell so companies would go out and build products now this happens to a lot of big companies as well that they would go out and you know test in the market but it won't sell and for some companies they have the luxury of losing money like that and that's fine but for smaller startups out there this is so risky and this is what investors don't really want as well

as for them to put in money and then they just lose them right so by having an mvp you get to minimize the risk of all of this because otherwise you know you would spend sway you would spend way way way more money rather than rather than not now i also get a lot of questions and i feel like it's great to answer this here i get questions around what's the difference between an mvp and a prototype aren't they you know the same thing aren't they like a product in progress well not really i think

there are three main differences here and i'll clarify them in a way that i hope makes sense number one is the scope so the scope is different because a prototype requires less time and effort an mvp requires more resources effort and manpower and the reason is really because of the commitment here once you commence an mvp it's very less likely that you're going to drop it completely because an mvp is really a real product but just with less features in it rather than 10 you're doing one or two as i said earlier a prototype is

simpler to dump the idea and then just restart again because a prototype oftentimes is not a real product sometimes it's not even working when i say it's not working it's not like a real product that is built it could just be a series of designs or a series of wireframes or it could just be a demo that a an engineer might have done but it's not ready to go out to the market yet so prototype is often is oftentimes done before you achieve an mvp it's actually a step uh way before you go out and

produce an mvp and the other main difference is around the audience here so prototype tends to stay internally with a handful of users for feedback whether it's stakeholders or whether it's just within the internal teams and you only invite a number of real users to go and test it and give you feedback but it's not out in the market yet you haven't gone out and say we've got this new app go and download it it stays internally because you're just prototyping and you're just testing it within your internal teams and mvp are built and they're

ready to be sold to a wider group of end users or early adopters so oftentimes you know you will hear products are launched as a beta version and oftentimes it can be an mvp because they they haven't completed the whole thing but it's out there it's ready for early adopters to go and test it and download it and sometimes an mvp is not being sold yet if there's like monetization behind all of that product and mvp might not be sold yet it's ready for a free trial essentially so the difference is one stays internally and

the other one and mvp goes out to the market now i want to talk about the advantages of an mvp as well so it's an opportunity to acquire early adopters and advocates one of the strongest thing to have as a startup or a new product is for you to have to start gaining loyal followers and your loyal fans to your product or your the idea that you have whatever it is so an mvp is great for you to go out to those early adopters and say hey i've got this new product this new idea it

does a b and c uh why don't you go and try and test it and let us know what you think and if they love it they can become advocates of that product or that idea an mvp helps reduce development cost as well while maximizing the learnings which is what companies need as they developing as they develop their product or their their improving their product development cycle so they get to learn more by releasing their products sooner rather than later and it's faster time to market as well it's faster anticipation of the market demand and

faster adjustments based on rapid feedback when you launch an nvp sooner rather than later you get feedback way earlier as well rather than later so that's always great for companies to be able to reflect back kill some of the features that they might want to build in the pipeline because the user said so they don't really want it or they don't need it these two features is all they need and they they get to shift their focus in their development cycle as well so there's a lot of learnings that they can do because of that

rapid feedback from the user now let's talk about uh the things that are not so good with mvps as well uh so you get a point of view here uh well when you launch an mvp earlier than your competitors competitors can potentially analyze and even copy your ideas potentially now i would argue it's not so much of a a bad thing if you're out earlier you get to learn earlier then you get to adapt pivot change you know like learn earlier than your competitors as well so it's not so much of a bad thing but

one thing to note yes competitors might be able to see that you've done this and they might do they might try and do uh something that's slightly better than what you're doing users may lose trust if they don't like your mvp so once once you launch your initial product your mvp users get to test it those early adopters that you hope was going to be an advocate or a fan of your product they don't like it or they hate it so much they go no i'm not going to trust this brand anymore that so as

a brand that might affect you and you might need to like change your whole strategy again so that's a negative that you can think of as well when launching an mvp so you don't want to lose trust way too early negative impressions because of that problem can build up if you're not able to address user feedback promptly so when you launch an mvp users might come to you and say look like i love your product but i wish there was this and that and that if you don't address that promptly users will also lose trust

and they think that uh you're only doing this for the fun of it and you're not taking it seriously and stuff like that so you're you're you need to up your customer service level game as well when you start launching your product so you gotta think about all of that systems and back end too so i'm going to go through some examples of big brands out there that started with an mvp and and give you some examples here so foursquare foursquare if you know what they are now they're much bigger than what they were back

then uh they started as a gaming as a gamified location check-in app and that's all it is and mainly in the u.s and places like new york and stuff like that but now they've grown into a full-blown city guide which is much bigger than what they were but all they were back then is just a check-in app a check-in location app and that's what it was and not too different from what amazon was as well so amazon they were just an online bookstore and and that's what their focus was they just wanted to sell books

online but you know what amazon is today they're like the the biggest giant uh of e-commerce site uh offering really like almost everything uh but they have the same focus which is personalized shopping experience but they've got you know the systems infrastructure aws there's all sorts of other products and businesses that are built around amazon but what they started off as their mvp was an online bookstore and that's what it was airbnb is another one uh so all they were really is a side hustle about room sharing a couple of friends uh started this as

you know like sharing as a room sharing uh application or website now they've evolved into the biggest travel accommodation provider in the world uh really because of you know they kept improving from there obviously they've had a lot of like challenges over the years as we know uh but all they started off really was a high it was a side hustle of renting their rooms or just sharing their rooms with uh travelers that was it and that was their mvp so if we learn from this i guess the main focus is for you to be

able to pick what you think is the unique selling proposition of your product or idea and focus on that don't like over complicate it too much as you're developing your product or as you're designing your product you will always have ideas especially when you involve investors stakeholders everyone else everyone will have their own piece of an idea but what's important is to prioritize work together collaboratively use some of the design thinking methods that i've also shared in this channel but from there once you prioritize you know where to start and focus on that release that

do it in a low risk way and from there you get to learn something and be able to decide on whether you go you know this way or the other all right so hopefully that gives you a little bit of an idea of what a minimum viable product is or an mvp and hopefully that's helpful for you in your product journey or in your career or in your studies otherwise i'll see you in the next video guys [Music]