Mobile apps have taken over and have become a catalyst for digital convergence. They are helping enterprises offer exceptional customer service, setting new standards, and ensuring structured digital expansion like never before. 

Start-ups and scaled IT organizations are aggressively using MVP as an initial step to develop a successful  Mobile app.

MVP is used to create a fundamental product with a minimum feature set. If the initial version is effective, then it will help you build a full-fledged and scaled product. 

​​As per the industry stats: 

- Almost 42% of start-ups fail due to a lack of market demand.

- Approximately 29% of start-ups fail because they run out of cash.

- If scaled properly, a start-up can grow 20 times faster than conventional companies.

- Almost 50% of entrepreneurs realize that their product is not getting any traction as their hypothesis was wrong, and that too after spending months on the development process. 

App development is an expensive affair, and to meet up the cost of app development, an entrepreneur needs serious and constant funding. It is important to prevent going all-in approach with a new idea, instead, business owners must test and validate the product beforehand. Developing an MVP is certainly the best option under such circumstances. 

What does an MVP mean?

MVP is also known as Minimum Viable Product, which is an initial version of the mobile application that encompasses minimal features that can meet the user requirements and helps you fetch the early user data to validate the app’s usability. 

Building an MVP aids your business to evaluate the mobile app and business idea with the bare minimum cost. MVP focuses on the core functions for future app development.

Why should you consider building an MVP for your mobile app?

Building an MVP is a structured process of developing a fresh software product with the core functionality and a minimum number of features possible. It conducts user response testing and evaluates the overall viability of the system and business idea.

Here is why you must consider building an MVP for your mobile app:

- Speed up the information needed to develop an MVP solution.

- Assess product hypotheses with the minimum resources.

- Deliver a product quickly, which can solve at least one problem for early users.

- Saving development efforts and time, deliver an app to a “workable” state.

- Develop a benchmark to analyze user behavior and drive business in the right direction.

- Perform groundwork for other projects.

Benefits of developing an MVP

MVP comes with a plethora of benefits, and that is the reason why it has become the most popular add development methodology among start-ups and even scaled businesses. 

Let’s check out some important benefits of MVP development:

• - It will help you in capturing user requirements and market demand.
• - It helps you to have a clear corporate vision for a specific mobile app.
• - The MVP app development allows you to develop and launch your product with minimal cost and effort.
• - It enables you to concentrate on the app’s underlying functionalities and understand what works and what does not.
•   - It will enable you to communicate with clients early and accomplish the intended outcomes as quickly as possible.

How to Develop an MVP for Your Mobile App

To develop a successful MVP for your mobile app, you must follow this product development lifecycle:

Kickstart with Market Research – 

At times, an innovative and unique idea fails to address market needs. To prevent such a situation, you must kickstart in-depth market research to determine the target users and ensure your idea fulfills their needs. 

Market research could be conducted using surveys and online Q&A sessions. While conducting a market survey, you must keep a close eye on your rivals, their products, and their strategies.

Ideate on Value Addition – 

A product must offer adequate value to the user; it must provide some sort of benefit to its end user. The value proposition of your MVP must be clearly defined, as that will help you keep your product development on track. 

As far as an MVP is concerned, it must provide a certain value to the user in its basic state. In this stage, you must outline your users, and their expectations, which will help you develop a suitable MVP solution.

Map Out User Flow – 

This is the design phase, and it is very important for your app’s development. You must look at the app from the customer’s perspective and accordingly create workflows and wireframes. The user flow must be maintained, as it will help you develop the capabilities in the future. 

While defining the user flow, you must define all the necessary steps to accomplish the main objective of your mobile app. 

You must remain focused on adding the basic tasks and some innovative features as well. Once the procedure stages are well defined, you can go ahead and define the features and functionalities of each intermittent step. 

Prioritize MVP Features – 

At this step, you must prioritize all the functions and features your MVP is going to support. To perform it, you should ask some questions like: What do the users need? Is this mobile app offering something valuable to its users?

Now you need to classify all the MVP features based on low, medium, and high priority. Once this is completed, you must arrange the features in the product backlog. This is the point when you will get an initial look at your MVP prototype, From this point on, you can work on MVP development using technology and tools.

Develop and Launch MVP – 

Once the user requirements and features are determined, you can kickstart the product development lifecycle process. You must use a technology stack to build the software, and you must ensure the MVP is a high-quality product with fewer features but still needs to cater to the customer’s requirements. 

The MVP must be engaging, suitable for the users, and very easy to use.

Iteration of Build, Measure, and Learn – Once the mobile app is developed and launched in the market, you must get user feedback and make the necessary course corrections wherever required. 

This is a constant process where app developers, software testers, quality assurance experts, and deployment professionals work together to optimize the existing product. It will help you to evaluate the competitiveness and acceptance of your app based on users’ comments.

How does MVP development help you raise funds easily? 

When discussing fundraising with investors, MVP gives you leverage. Here are three leverages an MVP provides you:

Product development with minimal risk and investment 

It is too risky to invest in full-fledged mobile app development. A large part of funds is spent on the product development lifecycle, but at the same time, it is vital to determine if your product is functionally accurate and market ready.

With an MVP, you get an alpha version of your mobile that has been developed at a fraction of the cost with maximum advantage. It also lets you reduce the app improvement cost, as you can discover the flaws at the early stages. 

Initial feedback – 

Getting feedback from your early users plays a pivotal role in the success of your mobile app. User input at an early stage helps you determine if your app development is on the correct path or not. With initial user feedback, you can swiftly pivot, mitigate gaps, resolve concerns, enhance security, and make your app better.

How to Get Investors Onboard While Developing an MVP?

Now that you have developed an MVP of your mobile app, it’s time to raise the necessary fund to support further app development activities. You must do the following while looking for potential investors:

Envision the future – 

It is important to envision the future in your mind while marketing your idea to potential investors. You must emphasize the potential, ability, scalability, and future expansion of your app to instill confidence in your investors. 

Find potential investors. It doesn’t matter if you have a unique idea, it always takes time and effort to get funds for new products, services, or mobile applications. It is important to find possible investors at various forums. You must study their vision, corporate objectives, and past MVP investments before you can kickstart the next phase of pitching.

Make an appealing pitch to potential investors – 

Once you have the potential investors, you must be ready to pitch your idea to them. You should be capable enough to showcase the MVP features, potential ROI, potential challenges, and various other aspects to generate interest in your investors.

Fortify your capital base- 

You must optimize your cash position and other financial aspects before showcasing your concept to potential investors. You must calculate your burn rate and monthly cash flow to ensure that you have sufficient cash in hand to sustain your business in the event of unavailability of funds.

Your funding partners post MVP stages

Let’s have a look at the primary sources of funding you must approach during the seed funding and pre-seed funding rounds:

Friends and family – They are the first source of funding for anyone, and they are the first person who believes in your idea and remains supportive of the entire product development process. However, you must remember that they are taking a huge risk by investing in your idea. Hence, you must give them adequate respect and treat them as investors.

NGOs and finance institutions – NGOs and other small financial institutions usually invest in businesses to create jobs and improve economic development. They prefer to invest in business ideas that can benefit the LMI (low to moderate-income) communities. You can prepare your pitch accordingly to make it a success.

Venture capitalists and angel investors – Venture capitalists and angel investors are usually HNIs (high-net-worth individuals) who prefer to put their money in early-stage companies in trade for equity. Such individuals usually prefer high-growth organizations, and they can certainly fund your idea if they envision high potential in your MVP.

Government Agencies – State, federal, and local governments run a wide range of programs and offer various financial incentives to stimulate economic development and entrepreneurship. You can pitch your idea and expect financial assistance in the form of grants and loans.

Crowdfunding – It’s a comparatively new method of raising funds by pooling small amounts of money from a sizeable number of people. You can create an interesting story about your business idea and showcase its business case and potential to generate excitement and interest among potential investors.

Conclusion

An MVP development is a critical step that ensures adequate funding for your mobile app development. You must develop an on-demand food delivery app that not only helps you draw the interest of your investors and early users but also secures the necessary funds to help you with app development and other activities. 

There are various organizations, such as WhatsApp, Uber, and Airbnb, that began as MVPs and have now transformed into highly successful products down the line. In a nutshell, an MVP assures that you can offer an extendable and scalable mobile app to your customers.