MVP Development Process: Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs

MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. In the tech world, MVP is considered the simplest form of an app or website with a single core feature in it.

This allows businesses or startups to get user feedback initially. This ultimately helps them to understand if this idea would work or not.

Assume you are in the process of setting up an online clothing store.

So it won't make economic sense for you to create an e-commerce platform with all the in-house manufacturing units, AI recommendations and personal stylist options; instead, what is needed is a bare minimum of one page on which your client can access some clothing items and place an order.

Would it not be perfect for you to be able to gauge the public's interest in your goods before investing a pile of money on hectic features and inventory? On getting a good response, you would be adding more features and product categories gradually.

7 Simple Steps to Build an MVP

If you were a singer, would you write the song first or book a session at the music studio first?

Writing the song. Right?

Same way, before you reach out to MVP Developers you have to think of the idea first. So, step 1 is your homework.

Step 1: Define the Problem and Goal

Identifying the core problem to solve

To get to this answer, ask yourself “What is around me that I can build better?”

It can be a

A Networking app for entrepreneurs and investors only

A budget-friendly meal planner for students.

An AI-based expense tracker

You will get a better answer each time when you ask this question from yourself.

Validation and Correction

So, you thought of an answer?

Now your next task is to hit your friends, family or colleagues up and ask if your idea makes sense to them.

If you hear something similar to

I know, right?!

I need this.

Wow, what an idea!

Then your idea has possible potential and you can continue further.

However, even if they don’t approve of your idea, there’s still a strong chance it holds potential. Let’s explore this further in the next steps.

Step 2: Market Research

Market Research in simple terms is understanding if your product is going to sell or not.

Let’s say you were to retail sell products of your choice, then would you choose random products or research the demand for those items?

The answer is so simple that we don’t even have to answer this question. We would choose products that are in demand in the market.

This is called market research.

Market research is not a simple process.

Every brand, from Amazon, BMW, and Coca-Cola to Xiaomi, Yahoo and Zara spends millions on market research.

You are no exception. You should and must start with market research even before thinking about the design of your MVP.

Market research includes

Analyzing competitors and their solutions

Identifying gaps and opportunities

Profitability

Consumer behavior study

Industry trends analysis

Step 3: Identify Core Features and Prioritize

Remember, you have already taken the second step i.e. did your market research. At this point, you’ll either be thinking about getting your MVP developed or waiting for another spontaneous idea to hit you because the previous one had no market.

Let’s understand how to select features for your MVP.

Listing essential vs. non-essential features

Take a paper or open your notes app and write down all the features you could add to your product.

Once this is done, separate them on the following basis.

1. Must have - Essential features or tasks that are critical for success. Without these, the project fails.

2. Performance Needs (Satisfiers) – These are some of the non-essentials that are considered important. (e.g., faster loading speed).

3. Delighters (Exciters) – Unexpected features that pleasantly surprise users.

4. Indifferent – Features that don’t impact customer satisfaction either way.

5. Reverse – Features that some users dislike and might cause dissatisfaction. (e.g., too many notifications).

The goal of developing an MVP is not to go beyond Satisfiers. Going beyond can significantly cost a lot as new creative features are harder to develop. We should focus on value-driven functionalities for proper optimization.

Step 4: Create a Prototype and Developing MVP

Now comes the interesting part. The thing for which you were waiting for. GETTING YOUR PRODUCT MADE.

Prototype

A prototype is a preliminary version of a product that is built to test ideas, functionality, and design before full development. It helps in identifying improvements and gathering user feedback early in the process.

Moving to MVP Development

Once your prototype is refined and validated, it's time to move to MVP development. This stage involves:

Choosing a Tech Stack. Some popular programming languages are React, Node.js, Flutter, etc. If you plan to hire a professional team, congratulations that’s not your headache anymore.

Building the Core Features First: Develop only the must-have features identified earlier.

Testing & Iterating: Continuously test the MVP for bugs and improvements.

Launching to Early Users: Soft launch your MVP to a small group of users and collect feedback.

The goal of this step is to bring your idea to life in the simplest, most effective form possible, ensuring that it serves the core purpose while leaving room for future improvements.

Now that your MVP is built, the next step is launching and validating its success—let’s move to Step 5!

Step 5: Testing and Launching

Once your MVP is developed, the next crucial phase is testing and launching it. This step ensures that your product is functional, user-friendly, and ready for market use.

Conducting Usability Tests

Usability testing helps identify issues that could affect user experience. It involves:

Observing how real users interact with your product.

Identifying pain points and areas for improvement.

Ensuring smooth navigation and intuitive UI.

Make sure no page is malfunctioning or the app doesn’t crash.

You can use tools like Microsoft Clarity and Hotjar to get real user session recordings and heatmaps. These insights help you understand user behaviour and improve the overall experience.

Collecting Feedback from Early Adopters

Early adopters are those people who initially use your app while it is newly launched. This can be done organically (i.e. people see your app and use it) or can be done as a paid service (i.e. you pay a certain group of people to use and review your app). Various methods of collecting feedback are-

In-app surveys and feedback forms.

Direct interviews with beta users.

Monitoring user behaviour and engagement data.

Iterating Based on Real User Insights

Once you collect user data, you can start making necessary adjustments to your MVP. This process involves:

Fixing bugs and usability issues.

Enhancing or modifying features based on user preferences.

Optimizing performance for better user experience.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to Track Success

To determine whether your MVP is on the right track, measure its performance using the following KPIs:

User Acquisition Rate: The count of new users acquired in a certain period of time.

Engagement Metrics: How often users interact with your product.

Retention Rate: Percentage of users who continue using the product after their initial experience.

Conversion Rate: Number of users taking desired actions, such as signing up or making a purchase.

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): Measures user satisfaction through feedback and ratings.

Thus, frequent updating of your MVP with real-life information gives you a better chance of developing a product that satisfies user preferences. Having gotten out into testing, it is time to scale and grow your product!

What’s Next After Developing Your MVP?

Congratulations! Your MVP is finally functional and you are receiving a good engagement rate on it. But hold on! Your work isn’t done yet.

Remember, you are standing in this position after putting in months of effort. What began as a hobby, you put much more than what you would put into your hobby. Time, money and skills.

To make sure, your effort doesn’t only act as a showpiece but also gives returns. Let's get into what are the next steps once your MVP is market-ready.

1. Monetization

Here are a few ways to do it without disrupting user experience:

Freemium Model – Offering basic features for free and charging for premium features. For example, Grammarly offers basic grammar correction for free but charges money for advanced features.

Subscriptions – Users pay a daily, weekly, monthly or annual fee to continue using the services. For example, Spotify.

One-Time Purchases – For example, to play this game, you need to purchase it.

In-App Ads – Run ads, but keep them minimal to avoid frustrating users.

Affiliate Marketing & Partnerships – For example, Amazon offers an affiliate program.

The key is to experiment with different models, gather user feedback, and optimize for long-term growth.

2. Scale Your Infrastructure and Maintenance

The heading is self-explanatory.

As your customer base increases, you will need more RAM, Storage, NVMe, and more cores in your CPUs.

Managing all these things won’t be a single man or freelancer’s task. Look for highly efficient developers, their skills would pay for their salary.

3. New Features and Market Expansion

Make subtle changes to keep your audience hooked. Gradually add complementary features that enhance usability and engagement.

Even the most popular brands try to capture multiple customer segments as it is not necessary that a single segment will always be interested in your product.

Last but not the least, last but not least, explore partnerships and collaborations with complementary businesses to expand your reach and increase brand credibility.

Key Takeaways

A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) helps businesses test their ideas with minimal investment before they start with full-scale development.

With the correct use of techniques and skills, developing an MVP can be entertaining.

The first step in this process is to brainstorm and refine the idea with the help of other people. Once this step is done, your MVP, without even an existence, starts to connect with the real world.

It is important to be thorough in identifying a real problem and conducting market research to ensure that some demand exists for the product. It should focus on only those features that treat the core problems while other features may be not only useless but also potentially obstructive.

Creating a prototype helps visualize the product, gather early feedback, and refine the concept before development. To make efficient use of your money, it’s a good idea to get your prototype developed for free by the MVP developers.

Creating an MVP is not just a single shot; it needs continuous testing, user feedback, and improvement. User acquisition, engagement, retention, and feedback are useful metrics that can track if your MVP is going in the right direction. After traction and user acceptance for the MVP are acquired, the business can look more into scaling and adding features.