A Minimum Viable Product is a Process for a Product-market Fit

Minimum Viable Product, or shorthand for MVP, is a process that must be repeated repeatedly to achieve what the target audience desires. You cannot develop an assumption, work on it, launch a final product, and become free. Heading in the direction of MVP will lead you towards the next stage, which is termed product-market fit.

MVP requires one to identify the riskiest assumptions, find the smallest possible experiment to test that assumption and use the experiment's result to correct course. This process eventually needs to be repeated several times.

What makes a Minimum Viable product apt to be a product-market fit?

As already mentioned, a Minimum Viable Product considers the market needs and several tests, letting us focus on the target audience. MVP comes with a handful of benefits that are apt to lead you towards a product-market fit,

• Focus on core functionalities

A step-by-step growth is achieved towards the core functions surrounding a product. There are no fancy alluring designs that you need to work on. Your entire focus is drawn on the test results provided by the target audience. It is the audience that decides the key aspects on which you have to work.

• Clarity of vision

The continuous tests and experiments over your idea drag you towards a clear, concrete vision. To support you here, MVP doesn't let you distract from your ultimate goal.

MVP makes an organization aim for what has to be built and what is viable.

• Early relationships with the target audience

The early adopters are the most valued audience. MVP allows you to develop a strong relationship with these early users, take their feedback, and work upon it. This process eventually leads to fine lining the product into a more worthy one.

• Understanding the needs of the target audience

Adding certain features to a product and waiting for months for the target audience to experience it and provide feedback results in losing money and time. MVP saves us from such losses, and an early launch of the product saves ample time and money. It also lets us keep our focus intact in the correct direction.

• Faster launch

Without worrying about expensive bug fixes, you can quickly launch an MVP. Your early adopters will be sitting with open arms to test the new features and provide necessary feedback.

• More updates and flexibility

The constant development and experimental phase leave a good room for updates and adjustments. Unlike the traditional approach, where months pass by when the team gets the actual feedback, here, a highly flexible product is generated the audience much appreciates that.

• Least risk involved

The gradual and slow growth phase makes the product least risky. The new amendments have been generated with time and keeping the audience's demands in mind, making MVP a risk-free approach.

A step toward Product-market fit (PMF)

Minimum Viable Product is at no point your ultimate goal. Your final success lies in making a shift from MVP to product-market fit. PMF is achieved when your MVP is hit with success. Product-market fit is when the organization founds the correct and scalable approach that drives utmost demand. Here, you create the customers for your products or services.

A shift from MVP to product-market fit is possible by taking in all the necessary actionable feedback;  a detailed survey of what the customer wants and why they want it. All in all, you need to design with them rather than designing for them.

So, when you feel that your start-up has reached a point where it need not push the customers to buy the product through paid ads to draw inbound customer requests, you have achieved product-market fit.

Final verdict

MVP helps an organization to understand whether the product is fit for the market or not. This approach helps save a copious sum of the amount of these small growing start-ups. So, continuously monitoring, developing, experimenting, and testing features with a real audience lowers the risk fourfold and gives a clear vision of the future of the product. Thus, incorporating MVP into our businesses increases revenue and reduces the risk.

An MVP generally takes 60-90 days to complete. We at Anuyat make your journey in developing an MVP easy.