MVP In Mobile Apps: The Wise Path Of Software Developers

June 29, 2023

MVP allows you to create a test version of your application as quickly as possible. Learn about MVP in mobile apps with Twendee in the article below.

What is an MVP?

A minimum viable product, or MVP, is a basic version of an application that contains only the necessary features. Because the main purpose of MVP is to test the viability of your application. You test to see if there is a real need for your app among real users or if your solution works. There’s a reason why many successful apps like Facebook and Airbnb started out as MVPs—it really works.

Using MVP is a great approach to building successful applications through iterative development. An MVP can quickly gather feedback on a new feature you want to add, which you can quickly incorporate into the next version. Repeating this process multiple times allows you to refine your application idea, solving problems with each iteration.

What is an MVP in mobile apps?

MVP in mobile apps is a minimal and usable form of a finished product for release and market testing. MVPs provide immediate value, allowing companies to collect real user feedback and learn what customers value while minimizing risks and costs. Building an MVP also helps companies prioritize product roadmaps for iterative product expansion. Ultimately, the MVP development process makes it easier for businesses to adapt to unexpected changes and provides continued value to customers as user needs evolve.

Design thinking combined with lean UX and Agile creates a successful MVP

To reap these benefits, it’s important that you grow your MVP as quickly and cheaply as possible. That way, if the app idea fails, you haven’t invested much in it.

Features of MVP in mobile apps

For an MVP to be called an MVP, it needs to have these characteristics. One is that it contains all the core features needed to convey the main idea of the application. This allows users to rate your app and give accurate and reliable feedback. For instance, Spotify started out as a desktop-only MVP that only offered a basic music streaming service.

Next, an MVP in mobile apps still has to provide value. Even if it’s a rudimentary and rushed first version of the app, it still has to live up to its core promise. Remember, MVP can also help you convert your early adopters if done right. A good example is the MVP in mobile apps – Instacart. Initially, founder Apoorva Mehta didn’t have enough resources to build an extended backend for his app idea. As an alternative, Mehta purchased and delivered items manually to customers who ordered through the app. It was a new way of doing things, but it worked. The user of the app doesn’t know this is happening in the background. That allows them to fairly evaluate it as if the backend were ready.

Of course, an MVP must be low-cost. That means spending the least amount of time and resources building it. For instance, the MVP in mobile apps, Spotify, as we discussed above took just four months to build. Ultimately, MVP is considered the best platform for your end application. It will allow you to gradually improve and add features on top of it as you go on.

The importance of the MVP in mobile apps

Now that we know what an MVP in mobile apps is and what it does, the next question is: why build it? Well, it can give you many benefits.

Prove the feasibility of the product

The top reason to create an MVP in mobile apps is to test real-world app ideas. The truth is that everyone thinks their app idea will be successful. Some may even sound great on paper. But the end user will be the one to judge that. Eric Ries, who popularized the concept of MVP, agrees with this assessment: “We have to find out what customers really want, not what they say they want or what we think they should want.”

Sadly, many developers don’t do this much. The biggest reason most apps fail is that there is no clear market demand for them.

Common reasons for application failure

MVP is one of the fastest, cheapest, and most effective ways to prevent such a situation. If you launch an MVP and get enough people using it, it’s a good sign that there’s a potential market for your app idea. But what if not? Well, at least you didn’t pour a lot of time and resources into an app project that turned out to be a failure. And while building MVP costs money-estimated at $15,000–$50,000-the cost of building a full app is relatively higher. Alternatively, you can go back to the drawing board and further refine your ideas. Because MVP in mobile apps can not only tell you if your application is viable, but it can also tell you where you need to improve.

Get feedback from users

MVP in mobile apps is a treasure trove of feedback for your application ideas, both qualitative and quantitative. This is important because it allows you to tweak your application and release fixes faster. It will lead to a better product, more users, and more revenue. Here are some common metrics you can use to measure your MVP.

Word of mouth
Interact
Register
Better customer rating based on feedback
Percentage of active users
Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
Number of paying users
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Leave rate

For example, if you find that your percentage of active users is high, that’s a clear sign that your core idea is compelling enough. That probably means you’ve included the right core features. However, if your abandonment rate is increasing steadily, it shows that your app is not attractive enough to retain users. You may have issues with your UI design or core features. The MVP can also quickly provide you with direct user reviews, which is the most valuable feedback you will receive. Most of the time, these users will tell you exactly what they don’t like about your app, so you can fix it right away.

Identify error

Here’s the reality: it’s impossible to release any software 100% bug-free, no matter how good your team is. Even a company as big as Google released a faulty product with a pretty serious glitch back in 2016.

Therefore, the mindset is not to launch an application without errors but to fix it as quickly as possible after launch. And this is where an MVP can be of great help. Early detection and remediation of critical issues can lead to a more secure and stable app. This helps prevent many users from abandoning or leaving bad reviews, which can hinder your app. MVP in mobile apps can also help reduce the cost of fixing these errors. This is based on the 1-10-100 Rule:

According to this rule, the cost of fixing problems in the final product is 100 times higher after it has hit the market. However, MVP has a good flaw. It’s true that you launched them, but they’re not the final product yet. That means you have the power to detect errors and fix them at a lower cost.

Types of MVP in mobile apps

There are two main types of MVPs: low and high fidelity. A low-fidelity MVP is what you call a fake MVP. That’s because they don’t do anything in the background. Instead, they are used to test potential demand. An example would be a fake website for a paid subscription service. When people sign up for it, it just leads to a blank page or a thank-you page and does nothing. The purpose is to check if enough people are willing to sign up before committing to full app development.

Another type of MVP—and the one we’re interested in—is the high-fidelity MVP. This is the actual, working (if limited) version of your app. Its purpose is to test the functionality of the application against real users. Let’s look at other subcategories of high-fidelity MVPs you can use.

Single-feature MVP

Single-feature MVP is what the name implies—it includes only one feature that you want to test with your users. Of all the types of MVPs, this is one of the fastest to set up because you focus your energy on only one thing. This is also the easiest to explain to the user. A feature’s MVP is helpful if you’re confident you know the core feature of your app. For instance, see how Uber created its first MVP in early 2010.

At this point, Uber founders Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp knew their app’s unique selling proposition: allowing users to book a ride from their smartphone. Therefore, their MVP does only one thing: it allows people to enter their addresses into the app. The app, in turn, contacts the nearest taxi driver and sends them to his or her location. Because their MVP was highly focused on the core idea, the founders were able to gather valuable feedback. Ultimately, they iterated and added more features, turning Uber into the app we know today. Like Uber, MVPs are a great platform to build your apps on.

MVP customer service

Concierge’s MVP is run entirely by humans. This is useful if you want to test the advanced features of your app but don’t want to spend the time and resources developing them completely. For example, let’s say you’re testing a dating app. Instead of developing the right algorithm behind it in your MVP, the recommendations are made manually by someone in the background. Perhaps one of the more famous apps that started as a concierge MVP is Airbnb.

When the founders of Airbnb wanted to test their app idea, they used their own home as a sample listing. Then they set up a website to see if anyone was interested. In the end, they got three customers to pay this way, thus validating their idea. Of course, today’s Airbnb app runs automatically with machine learning and AI in the background. But none of that would have been possible if it hadn’t started with a manual hack to test their ideas. The biggest advantages of a concierge MVP are cost and speed. As the Airbnb example shows, it costs them a minimal amount to set up their sample website. However, be prepared to put more effort into the backend. You also need to ensure that the human component of the concierge MVP is competent enough to provide a level of service comparable to what you envisioned in the final application.

Partial MVP

Partial MVPs use existing tools, services, and products to create apps for testing instead of building them from scratch. The most obvious benefit of doing that is speed. You can make a pretty advanced MVP with all the bells and whistles without spending too much time on it. And depending on the tools you use, it can also save money. Groupon is definitely one of the best examples of piecemeal MVPs.

The site was initially built using the basic version of WordPress. Then, when people buy a deal from their temporary website, they use FileMaker to generate a PDF file, which is then sent automatically to the user via an Apple Mail script. It’s an assembled MVP, for sure, but it really offers more automation than an Oz MVP instructor or wizard. But the important thing is that it is effective in validating ideas at a low cost and at a fast speed.

Planning to build an MVP

In fact, developing an MVP is a challenge—sometimes even harder than the final app! The biggest hurdle is balancing value and development time. It’s harder to prioritize features to add than people think. If you need more help and guidance, you can read about the MVP in mobile apps development process to get an idea of the workflow involved.

Step 1: Identify and understand business and market needs

First, determine if the demand for your product is high in the market. It could be an organizational need or a customer need. The key is to analyze your competition and establish how you can make your product stand out.

After determining the need for your product, it’s important to set long-term business goals. The trick is to identify what will lead to the success of your product and start working on it.

Step 2: Map the MVP user journey

The important thing when doing MVP is to design your product with the user in mind. One of the best ways to ensure that your users have a good first experience using your app is to map the user journey.

This lets you look at your product from the user’s perspective. Also, provide insights into how you can design your app in a convenient way for users. Besides, defining the user flow and addressing the actions the user needs to take to accomplish the end goal ensures you don’t miss anything in the user journey.

Step 3: Create a map showing the user’s benefits and difficulties

This map allows you to identify all of the user’s pain points and the user’s gains as each action is solved. This tactic allows you to identify where there is the most potential for adding value to your application. You can then focus your MVP on these areas.

Step 4: Decide which features to develop

As you begin to prioritize your product, you should start answering a few questions: what is the number one problem users face, and how will my product function?

To define the core supporting features of your MVP in mobile apps, you should create an overall wish list of all the features that you want your product to ultimately deliver. Now you can start organizing and cutting features to keep the MVP lean. To determine the features required for an MVP mobile application, use the MoSCoW matrix.

MoSCoW is a preferred method that stands for must, should, could, and not. This method is used to determine which features need to be perfected first, which features come later, and which features need to be completely cut. Identifying the essential requirements for your product in advance greatly reduces the scope of your activities.

Step 5: Collect feedback and measure

This feedback will help you decide what the right MVP is or change direction altogether. Reviewing user feedback and tracking user behavior will tell you more about what your users want and need from your product.

MVP in mobile apps development is the best way to identify user needs and build apps quickly. Get in touch today, and Twendee will help you. Or you can also find out more information about our MVP packages at: https://startup.tendeesoft.com/.