An MVP is a prototype of the product developed for testing by the presumptive target audience and market. By releasing an MVP, you may validate product hypotheses and research your consumers' responses to its features.
The prototype will help you spot your audience's primary needs and what stumbling points they have while using your product, improve functionality, and reduce or add tools analyzing user behavior.
MVP's value lies in providing accurate user insights, as they can test the product. Your customers' feedback will help you understand the market's demand and rework or include solutions for further development based on new requirements. It will also benefit you in not making your product too complicated from the start, and saving the budget on developing features that don't serve either your customers or your product.
It will help you plan the future development process and decide whether you need to make changes when you haven't yet started the actual development, allowing you to cut costs and not overspend.
In this article, we will discuss how to choose features for your prototype so that MVP can bring you the maximum value, not taking too much time and money for its development.
How to Prioritize Features in Your MVP
Building your product step-by-step, starting small, gives you a lot before launching the first version. The MVP can help you validate your product assumptions, such as your market segment, product design, business model, solution architecture, and monetization strategies.
To do this, you should first establish the vision and strategy for your product. Make sure you understand the audience, the reasons your audience will use it, and the necessities it covers. Learn about your competitors and define the critical differences that will distinguish your offering.
Also, there is a big difference between what the user wants and needs. It's better to focus on empowering your MVP with necessary features instead of developing customer-requested features.
The work on your MVP always starts by listing the product's functionality that will enhance its practical value for the users. Focus on the features that make a difference rather than common ones.
It should be the first version of your dream product that will highlight how it can evolve the lives of customers and the benefits they can get from it. It will also increase the sales of your product.
Also, some functions are initial to any product – without them, you can't use them. They may vary for every project but include tasks that fulfill essential purposes, such as authenticating users and monetizing.
Sort your product's features into three categories: "must-have," "nice-to-have," and "optional." Then, create essential metrics to monitor the performance, such as product quality, lifetime value, conversions, and ROI. Test the hypotheses about these metrics with the help of your MVP.
Sometimes it may be hard to define which features are mandatory and which are "nice-to-haves."
Usually, the following features are better to add to the second priority list:
– complicated design is not necessary for demonstrating your core features but takes time and money to create;
– complex social integrations, such as integration feeds or API. Though simple social logins can be present in your MVP;
– a highly customized user experience makes the app complex and not crucial in the first stages of development;
– promotional materials or additional screens with no practical use in the functionality of your product should also be considered non-essential content.
If you have drafted the most critical features, check them once again to figure out whether there are still some functions that you can add later. It will allow you to stretch out your development effort and spending over a more extended period, improving efficiency and budget management.
If you doubt whether a particular feature is worth being included in MVP, consult with your PM. It may be helpful to acquire a technical view of the functionalities required for an app to function.
The list of typical features initial for MVP
1. Login and authentification are needed for users to sign in and sign up for your platform.
2. The actual content will help your customers navigate the platform and use the features.
3. User data collection may not be part of your MVP, as some can function without a database and consist of just a plain interface. But to track how your customers interact with your product, you will need a database. It is also valuable for collecting feedback to understand what changes should be made or what parts should be reworked.
4. Interactive features will help your users to engage with your product and test its core functions. It allows your users to experience the product you have built and drive comments and feedback from their point of view.
5. Monetization features to generate revenue will allow you to optimize the checkout process to maximize conversion.
Features that are better to exclude from your MVP
Consider excluding expensive features if they won't affect the functionality or are not the core differentiators of your product.
Among such features may be AI or machine learning. Both are not only costly, but it is also time-consuming to implement them properly. Leave those technologies for later, considering user experience and feedback. As well as AR or VR, which of course can drive more attention from your users but are too complicated and expensive to make a part of your MVP.
Such complex functionalities as marketing tools, analytics, or third-party APIs are usually better to integrate into later stages of development.
What's next?
Building an MVP helps you to start with developing the features that can resolve the primary issues of your potential users, get their feedback on the functionality and rework those features which may have become a stumbling point or didn't work as planned. You can come up with fresh ideas about improving your product or what other tools are worth adding.
Including basic features in your MVP doesn't mean you are giving up on important and complex ones. MVP helps you to plan in terms of time, money, and effort: developing the most needed features in the best way ensures that you deliver the best product to your customers. After you've done an MVP where essential tools work flawlessly, you can stats planning the feature release of the first version.
The first step would be reprioritizing features according to the users' feedback. If some of the features weren't included in MVP, but you consider it to improve the user experience or give your customers additional value, you may consider developing them now. Make sure that their releases align with your timing and budget and that you are not sacrificing the priority functionalities. Don't hesitate to save some secondary tools for the second release of the product.