“It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it them.” – Steve Jobs.

What is the first step of ‘app development’? Creating the MVP or gathering feedback of users about what they want in an app? Well… both things are one and the same. Think about it – can you afford to gamble on an idea when creating an app, or even design the app based on an assumption about how consumers will respond to it? We bet your clients won’t be too comfortable either with the prospect, especially when it’s their money and reputation on the line. So, what should be done?

App Development Is A Risky Investment - But Is It?

Developing an app can be a risky investment for a business if it’s not handled with care. Even in this case, researching app concepts well can sometimes lead to incredibly disappointing user download and user retention rates. So, is creating an MVP a good idea? Considering, an MVP will allow fast-track movement of projects through the pipeline AND enable developers to create stronger products for clients. Isn’t that a good thing?

It depends… to understand when one should create an MVP for an app (if at all), one needs to understand the value of an MVP. Here’s what you need to know;

The Value of MVPs in App Development

The first person to define ‘what an MVP is’, was back in 2001 by Frank Robinson . Basically, an MVP is a scaled-back version of a product released to the public for the explicit purposes of testing and validating the concept and viability of the product, in the market. What is the point of creating an MVP in the first place? The point is to create leaner products and get people to use the most basic version or concept of an app. In this way, the app developers can easily collect user feedback in the earlier stages, which in turn, is used to shape and ‘transform’ the product in the final version.

Some other benefits of creating an MVP are:
1) The product can reach the market more quickly, than if waiting for the final app version to be developed.
2) The viability of an app’s concept can be tested before too many hours can be committed to the job.
3) There’s more room for improvement when it comes to working out the kinks in the final product.
4) Money is saved from creating an MVP first. How? Only time is spent building features that are absolutely needed. Also, during the process, you might find that users are content with the scaled-back version, so you WON’T have to conduct more work to finalize the app.
5) You will have something (a tested app idea that has already been embraced and used by users) to bring to investors which could make the rest of the development process go smoothly.

So… what have we learned so far? It’s a VERY good idea to create an MVP before the start of any app development project. Another question that can arise is whether only startups need to create an MVP or not. Here’s the thing: an MVP will take you far, whatever the size of your company or idea or budget. In fact, it’s always a good idea to start with developing n MVP first when developing new features in your product. Release a basic version of a new feature to selected groups of users to test. Then, once enough feedback is collected, the same feature can be improved upon before releasing the final and official version of the app.

In conclusion, we highly recommend developing an MVP, in order to save time, money, and resources. Need help with that? Alfabolt is the perfect place to seek help in developing an MVP for your app product development idea. Contact us for a free consultation or visit our blog and read more about MVPs, before deciding to trust us with your next great idea.

How to build an MVP for your app