Tips to Move from Minimum Viable Product to Full-Scale Product
In the previous article, we discussed the mistakes startup owners make when building an MVP. We discussed how you should build an MVP. We also discussed the mistakes you should avoid when doing an MVP. A MVP first approach helps you to create fast or fail fast. A MVP approach gives you the path that you have to adopt in getting your product market fit. After you have developed a Minimum Viable Product and found the market adoption, it is time that you begin building a scalable product to suit a wide range of your buyer persona.
Now that you have been successful with your MVP through the customer reviews and the usage, you have to look at a minimalistic product that will work. The minimalist product is one type of product that has the basic features your customers can use. This product is called Minimal Acceptable Product (MAP). The difference between this product and MVP is the ability to use the product at scale. A wider audience can use this product. You can do the testing on the functionalities because the concept of MVP is validated.
The example of Dropbox is an excellent way to explain how a successful MVP became a great product. The first feature of dropbox was meant for the users to store the files. The founder compared Dropbox with the ability of a user to send large files like 25 MB. The points of comparison were email, FTP server unavailability with regular users, Mega share upload sites. This positioning caught the users' attention, and the users adopted the product very fast for the primary use case. Gradually, Dropbox evolved with multiple functionalities over time.
The approach of gradually moving from MVP to MAP has its advantages to startups. Let us look at a few of those.
Building Out for Scalability
To build the usable primary product, you have to limit the product to a specific industry or a use case. These basic features will help you to understand the basic needs of a few industries. You can gradually begin building out more functionalities for the same industry or the same use case as time progresses. You can do this as you become efficient in handling one need after the other.
This approach helps you in becoming more customer-oriented. The product becomes more useful to the customer than it was during the MVP stage. Product management and developer goals become much clearer. They will be ready with the right development roadmap as they know what they have to develop.
Specialist in a Few Use Cases
Specializing in a few use cases gives much differentiation. It is helpful to do so instead of building multiple functionalities for a broader market in the early stages itself. The few use cases in the early stage allow you to set standards. The standards can be in a few use cases in multiple industries. You can , at a later stage, develop new use cases for multiple industries. You can move from strength to strength rather than rapidly expanding while keeping the problems at the root level unsolved.
Solving Urgent and Important Pain Points
This approach helps in solving the most urgent and then the critical pain points for the customers. This is a better approach instead of building a set of features that are aspirational in nature. The product then gets adopted gradually by an increasing set of users. The new users figure out that their pain points are getting solved.
Transition from a Particular Pain Point into a Long Term Goal
An MVP implies solving a specific pain point of a user. An MAP goes onto solving something bigger for customers. You begin with a smaller use case for a smaller market and gradually move through the four stages into a bigger pain point for a larger market. The stages are
Pricing Strategies
You would have an idea about the pricing of the product at the/ MVP level. However, the pricing decisions may change either way when you are at the Map level. Pricing is important because of the value you would have discovered the users would have got out of your MAP. You might be able to find out the value of each of the functionalities as well. You can then determine the right pricing strategy of the product to specific markets.
GoTo Market Strategy
By this stage, you should have a good idea of the types of customers that would adopt the product. You can decide the segmenting and the targeting strategy as well. You can choose the Go To Market strategy based on the types of segments in your plan. You can decide the kind of marketing, the sales force, and the partner eco-system that will help you take the product into your customers' hands.
On-Going Testing
The product should regularly be tested and be updated based on user feedback. Testing will help the product in getting adopted by a larger market. Problems that people face in using these functionalities can be solved gradually. The product scales into catering to multiple use cases and can hence address a larger market.
The MVP would have worked effective for a smaller market with minimal customers and lesser load. The expectations of the trial customers may not be big. They might compromise and use the product with a minimalistic design and slow speed as long as the product met the basic needs. However, the expectations on the product scaling up is high when the customer becomes a paid customer. So , on-going testing will help us build a scalable product.
Conclusion
Now that you have developed a MVP, transitioning it into a MAP is a carefully thought out set of steps. A MAP will get you to access a larger market and can help you to acquqire paying customers. Following the steps will help you graduate from an unproven startup into a growing firm. If you're Looking for MVP Development Services, contact us today!
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