MVP Development Services: What They Are & Why You Need Them

Ideas are exciting, but converting them into a fully-fledged digital product comes at a cost.

That said, you can’t go on building a complete product and then test the market as it would lead to the wastage of time, resources, and money. As a startup owner, you may neither have the luxury nor the patience to do that.

That’s where MVP development services come into play. They give you a reality check for your business idea before you decide to go all in with it. This way, you save money and time by not building something that nobody needs.

In this blog, I’ll discuss in detail what MVP development services are, why you need them, and how to choose the right MVP development services provider that does justice to your vision. Let’s begin:

What are MVP Development Services?

MVP development services involve building an MVP (a bare minimum version of a product including only the essential features) and testing it in the market. The idea is to validate your idea and gauge its market demand with minimum investment.

MVP development services allow entrepreneurs and startup owners like you to build and launch an MVP of your idea to validate assumptions and gather feedback before you decide to invest more resources. This way, you can protect yourself from the risk of failure and ensure your product meets target audience requirements before you develop it.

Why Do You Need MVP Development Services?

Every founder looking to build a product needs MVP development services to:

1. Reduce the time to market

Have you heard about the advantage of being first? It’s the competitive edge you get on initiating an idea into the market. Two popular examples are:

• The tech giant Apple pioneered the smartphone revolution by launching the first iPhone in 2007 – becoming the first company to successfully combine a phone, music player, and internet device. It established them as an industry leader.

• Netflix became the pioneer in online streaming by launching a video streaming platform. Being the first to digitize its movie collection, Netflix was able to build a massive subscriber base.

Now, being first was easier years ago as people had less exposure to innovations and less inclination toward building digital products. But doing the same is not so easy today as many people are expressing interest in building products and having easy access to resources.

If you’re not fast enough, chances are someone else may launch an idea similar to yours and gain a competitive edge. MVP development ensures it doesn’t happen and your idea gets into the market as soon as possible.

2. Reduce the Chances of Failure

According to Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen, 95% of new products fail. Still, you can prevent yourself from heavy losses and wasted efforts by gathering early user feedback. That’s what MVP development services do.

Building an MVP gives you the luxury to launch your idea into the market as soon as possible and gather early feedback from stakeholders. Based on this feedback, you can decide whether to add new features or pivot.

Even if your idea doesn’t pan out to be as expected, you can pivot based on the market requirements and still build a successful product. That’s what Slack did.

Initially, Slack founders wanted to build a game, but decided to build a messaging application as they felt a messaging app had more demand compared to a game. Today, Slack is used by businesses across the globe for communication purposes.

Note: Putting your idea out there and learning it isn’t feasible can be disappointing. But it is still better than realizing it after building a fully-fledged product because then you can never go back.

3. Reduce the product development time and cost

MVP development can also help you reduce the development time and cost to a major extent. It’s because you don’t build your product at once, putting a financial strain on yourself. Instead, you build an MVP, launch it into the market, and start generating revenue to recoup your initial investment.

Then, as you gather feedback, you can continue putting your money to refine the product. This way, you also stay competitive and capture the market faster than others.

4. Maintain flexibility and adaptability

Market requirements change very fast in today’s digital landscape, and only those founders are successful who can successfully pivot their product to these needs. We have seen how Google evolved over years – seamlessly adopting market revolutions. Facebook has done the same.

But how can MVP development help you become flexible and adaptable to market requirements? Easy, first you build an MVP and release it to the market to gather feedback. Then, based on the customer feedback, you decide where to proceed further. This way, you stay ahead of the curve and develop product that meet customer requirements.

How to Choose the Right MVP Development Services Provider?

We talked about MVP development services and why they matter. So, at least know why should you consider building an MVP for your product idea. But a crucial piece of the puzzle still remains, i.e., how to choose the MVP development services provider that does justice to your time, budget, and vision.

It’s essential because even if you know the importance of building an MVP. If its development is not in the right hands, you would still be wasting your time, money, and efforts.

To choose the right MVP development services provider, here are a few things that you must consider:

1. Industry experience

Someone with significant experience in MVP development have greater chances of building a successful MVP than someone who’s just getting started. It’s because they already know the market and can better anticipate customer demands.

Also, someone experienced in product development would rarely make technical solutions that are sub-par and have limited scope for scaling. They would set the priorities right, invest their research and time at the right place, and build and launch the MVP of your product on the right time. Above all, the MVP would meet your expectations.

2. Success track record

The product development services landscape is full of so many pretenders that you can’t take anyone for their words anymore. First, ask for social proof and then consider working with them. It would save you from making a wrong choice. Ask them how many MVPs they built in the past and how many of these became successful products. The answer would clear your confusion and help you make the right decision.

3. Approach to communication and collaboration

How an MVP development services provider approaches communication and collaboration matters a lot in determining your MVP’s success. The more transparent is the communication, greater are the chances of success. So, observe how the provider approaches communication and collaboration before you decide to work with them.

Is there communication approach transparent? Do they agree to frequently share updates with you? How would you track the MVP progress? Do you feel involved in the development of your MVP? The answers would help you decide whether you should go with the MVP or not.

4. Pricing

Pricing matters while selecting an MVP development services provider. While you should not necessarily go with someone who’s charging much less (as chances are services will be of sub-par as well), the pricing should be affordable, at least. Ensure that the pricing options are flexible. It would not put financial strain on you.

5. Awareness of evolving market trends

Market ignorance is the biggest drawback in an MVP development services provider. Someone who’s not aware of the latest happenings in the market can’t build an MVP that gives you an edge over your competitors. In a long run, they would be a major roadblock to your product’s success. Hence, while selecting them, analyse how much aware they’re with the current development in the market.

6. Clarity about your target audience and the problem your product wants to solve

Teams behind successful MVPs understand their client’s vision and target audience. They know what problem they want to solve with the product and who would be the target customers for it. It gives them the clarity of how they would approach the MVP’s creation, what features they would keep in it, and when would be the right time to launch the MVP in the market.

If you’ve found such a partner, congratulations, the half work is already done. Otherwise, keep looking until you find someone who cares about your vision and your customers.

In short, the key to building a successful MVP is to hire an experienced team that has its priorities set right, a transparent approach to communication and collaboration, a proven portfolio of MVPs that scaled into successful products, awareness of latest trends in product development, and justified pricing. Also, ensure they know your target audience and your vision well and believe in it because working with such people would be a breeze. If you have nailed it, no one can stop your idea from turning into a successful product. Best of luck!

Author Bio

Tricia Pearson is an experienced writer at Net Solutions with five years of domain experience across marketing, Tech, and B2B solutions. She works to inspire creativity and encourages team members to bring their best to each project. Tricia thrives in competitive teams and gets satisfaction from late-night writing sprints. She prefers reading by the beach, hiking, and discovering new local cafes during her downtime.