Over the past few years, the startup world has become more and more competitive. New frontiers have been found, and this has made the products pushed to the ecosystem’s end users better. So, it’s become more important for startups to get their products to the people they want to reach as quickly as possible. MVP development services are one way to speed up the time it takes to get a product to market.
What is an MVP?
Often referred to as a “minimum viable product”, MVPs must have the essential features to satisfy users, attract additional users, and attract investors. This is the heart of many new businesses. In this article, we look at 20 examples of successful MVPs to show startups what they should focus on when making their own MVPs.
What Are Some Popular Definitions of MVP?
“MVP” is one of the most misused and misunderstood terms in the startup world. Identifying who coined the phrase and what they meant can help sort out the mess. SyncDev, Inc.’s CEO Frank Robinson came up with the term “minimum viable product” in 2001, according to Steve Blank, an author, and business owner. Robinson used MVP to talk about “the simplest version of a product that can be used.”
The term had a huge impact, and popular books like The Start Owner’s Manual, the Business Model Canvas, and Eric Ries’ The Lean Startup all used it. In fact, Eric Ries is often given credit for helping to make the term MVP well-known.
Eric Karjaluoto later explained the term by saying that MVPs are a way to “avoid making something people don’t want.” Karjaluoto says that the best way to think of an MVP is as a “mid-stage prototype” that lets you test out an idea and learn from real users.
Why use an MVP?
MVPs help businesses in many ways. At its most basic, an MVP can help a company figure out if people are interested in their idea. MVPs can help get early adopters, and the feedback they give can help shape how the product is made in the future. MVPs can also bring in money if people buy the product or service.
What are some myths surrounding MVPs?
MVP is a term that is often misunderstood, so there are a lot of myths about them. Here are the three most common myths about MVP that you might have heard.
Myth #1. An MVP must be a prototype
Some people think that MVPs must be prototypes. This isn’t always the case. Most MVPs are fully working products that people can use or buy, but they don’t have to be. As we’ll show later in this post, some MVPs are just landing pages or videos of a product or service that doesn’t yet exist. A video explaining DropBox’s MVP was released long before any hardware, software, or infrastructure were available!
Myth #2. MVPs are just quick versions of the real thing
Many people think that MVPs are just versions of an app, website, or product that are not as good. Not at all. An MVP needs to show enough benefits for the future to attract and keep early adopters. If the idea isn’t very good, it probably won’t catch on. In fact, putting out a poor MVP can make it less likely that an idea or concept will be taken up and become popular.
Myth #3. MVPs purpose is to help gain an initial user base
Some people think that MVPs are just a way to get the first group of people to use the product. In fact, the point of an MVP is to create a feedback loop that helps developers make decisions. An MVP is a method of product development that works best for technical products. It cuts down on the time it takes to build and lets developers work with less.
Below are the 20 Most Successful MVPs:
Facebook
When it first started, Facebook was called “Thefacebook,” and its main goal was to help students connect with their friends through their classes and colleges. It not only brought them together but also let them post messages on their boards.
But it’s important to note that Facebook wasn’t the first social network that let people connect with their friends and post messages. At the time, other social networks, such as Friends Reunited, used the same idea. Facebook’s main selling points were how easy it was to use and how popular it became among students. This made room on the platform for the other features that came after.
The founders avoided mistakes made by other social networks by limiting the product to Harvard, as well as an attractive selling point. Some of these mistakes were spending too much money on development at the beginning and growing too quickly without giving users what they want. Thanks to its MVP, Facebook grew naturally in US colleges. This made people interested in the product and helped it grow into the most popular social network we know today.
Airbnb
Airbnb would not have become so popular if it didn’t get rid of middlemen and let people rent for short periods of time. When Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia came up with the idea, they were having trouble paying the rent on their loft apartment. Lucky for them, there was a design conference in town at the time, so they made a simple website with a few pictures of the loft apartment to list their apartments. People say that after that day when three people paid, the rest is history.
Their MVP let people view the apartments they were renting out and how much they cost.
Pebble
Pebble is another startup that went against the rules of its industry to make a great product. The new company was one of the best-known smartwatch brands. Pebble’s smartwatch didn’t look like a small coin like most smartwatches do. Instead, it was made with e-paper. Even though Pebble’s MVP had an unusual design, it was able to raise $10 million on Kickstarter.
The backers showed that not everyone wants to use the newest and most popular design. This also happened with Pebble Time, which is 2015 raised more than $20 million. But it’s important to note that Pebble just quit, but not before showing that different designs can work.
Groupon
Vouchers and discount tags have been around for a long time, but the idea behind Groupon is to make sharing coupons more modern. As a test, the new business started with a simple WordPress website and sent coupons as PDFs to early subscribers. This test went well, so the startup went on to build a voucher system and backend, which made the business successful.
Dropbox
The most interesting MVP story might be about Dropbox. The new company didn’t have a real product to sell. Instead, it was just a video that explained how the idea worked. The goal was to find out if people would like the idea. This step was thought to be smart and cost-effective because they could have made the whole hardware, APIs, and apps before they made the video. But there were risks, mostly financial ones, and they didn’t want to take them.
Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, the founders, chose the less risky option, and it paid off. About 70,000 people left their emails and said they wanted to use the product as soon as it was ready. If the idea had failed and the founders had taken the risk of making apps and hardware, they would have lost money, time, and effort.
Twitter
The Twitter MVP came about in a very strange way. The idea came from a hackathon that Odeo put on. The Odeo hackathon was organized after Apple released iTunes, which rendered Odeo less useful. The goal of the hackathon was to help the startup figure out what to do next after Apple’s iTunes caused a lot of trouble. During the hackathon, the idea to make a platform based on SMS came up.
At the time, it was called Twttr, and it was supposed to be an SMS platform for employees only. Twitter was made public by Odeo in 2006 because its employees were spending hundreds of dollars to post on the platform. It wasn’t until 2007 that Twitter became popular, and the rest is history.
Buffer
Buffer is an app for making plans. It lets you post on popular social media sites at a certain time. But its most valuable player is also one of a kind. It used the same style as Dropbox, but instead of an explainer video, it used a landing page. The idea, how it works, and the prices were all explained on the landing page.
Whoever likes the idea and clicks to buy a plan is taken to a page that says Buffer isn’t ready yet, but they can enter their email addresses to join the waiting list. The founders then used the emails people sent to get in touch with them and find out what they expected from the product.
Etsy
The MVP that Etsy pushed is the best example of smart work. Thanks to eBay, the founders had an idea and found out that it works. Rob Kalin, one of the founders, says that he got the idea for Etsy when he tried to sell his wooden computer cases on eBay but found that the fees were too high and the site was hard to use. Chris Maguire, Haim Schoppik, and Jared Tarbell, three other founders, were all freelance website developers at the time and had heard the same complaints from a community forum they were working on at the time.
They made a website where people could sell things they had made themselves. Within a few days, thousands of sellers joined the poorly designed website and started selling things they had made themselves. This was a test to see if the idea was good, and the team then went on to build the better platform we know today.
All they had to do was figure out where eBay failed its users and give those users what eBay couldn’t. This is why Etsy focused on custom-made items and helped crafters connect with their ideal customers.
Amazon
Amazon had a simple start for a brand that became the face of online shopping. At first, the brand sold books online through a simple website, which gave traditional bookstores a run for their money. Amazon put a lot of effort into selling cheap books, and this gave them the edge they needed to take over the retail world.
Zynga
Games are a very common thing to do on social media sites today. But there was a time when playing games on social media sites was weird, and that was when Zynga began.
The main thing they sold was a popular poker game. But when the startup went live on Facebook, it was able to get attention and raise money. So, Zynga’s MVP development services showed that a successful MVP isn’t always about the product, but about the platform, it’s used.
Zappos
This MVP was based on an idea that is now used by almost all new online retail businesses. Nick Swinmurn, who started Zappos, wanted to sell shoes but didn’t have a store or any shoes to sell. But he uploaded a picture of the shoes he wanted to sell. Nick goes into the store, buys the shoe, and then sells it to the customer if they want it. He was able to make a value chain this way, even though he didn’t own a shoe store.
Product Hunt
Ryan Hoover, who started Product Hunt, wanted to create a place where other founders could share and talk about their products with other founders and people who were interested. But he knew that building the platform would take a long time, a lot of money, and a lot of work. He had to be sure that other people would use the platform if he built it.
So he made a minimum viable product (MVP) called Linkydink. With this tool, you can make a group to share links. He added his friends who are working on their own startups and used social media to spread the word about the idea. It took 20 minutes to make the group, and in the first week, the MVP brought in 170 people who wanted to talk about their products or find out about new ones.
Uber
We all know that Uber is one of the most popular and successful ride-hailing apps. But what a lot of people don’t know is that Uber MVP met the business needs for an idea. It put San Francisco drivers in touch with iPhone users who didn’t mind having their credit card information linked with an app they didn’t know much about. Uber was able to show with this MVP that people are willing to give sensitive card information in exchange for a cheap taxi ride.
Foursquare
This is a well-known example of an MVP with only one feature. But the approach or decision to use only a few functions in the MVP did not come as a surprise. Naveen Selvadurai and Dennis Crowley, who started Foursquare, made a product called Dodgeball that they sold to Google. So they knew what they were doing in the business of starting up.
The Foursquare MVP only had a few basic features, like letting you check in to places and give you badges. The full development of the product and the addition of more features were made possible by the success of this MVP.
iPhone
This is another MVP development service that came with only the most basic features. Even though it may sound strange, you should know that the first iPhone didn’t have Bluetooth or MMS, used 2G, couldn’t copy and paste text, and couldn’t search. Also, it didn’t have the feature that suggests words to type as it does now. The point is that Apple knew about MVP and how important it was to add only basic, useful features to the product.
Spotify
Spotify is another example of a startup that thought it was more important to add a core feature to the MVP than to add a bunch of cool features and lose focus. Its creators want to make one of the best ways to stream music. So, the MVP only had one feature, which was to stream music. Spotify’s minimum viable product (MVP) was a desktop app that let you stream music and was tested in closed beta on the market.
As soon as the founders saw that the MVP was exactly what the market wanted, they focused on adding more artists to the platform, making mobile apps for users, and expanding into the US market.
AngelList
AngelList started out as a way for startup founders to connect with investors and get money for their ideas and products. It has since changed into a way for companies to find employees. The two founders, Naak Bibi and Naval Ravikant were the ones who came up with the idea and decided to test it in January 2010.
Using their large network of contacts, all they did was send simple emails to investors to introduce themselves. This test went well, and they saw that the idea could work. This is when they decided to grow their business and make it big.
Kickstarter
As popular as Kickstarter is as a place to show MVPs and raise money, it also used to have an MVP. The Kickstarter MVP was released in 2006, and it only had the most important features. For example, it lets people post their MVP, explains what it does and how it works, and meets people who were interested in backing them. The MVP was meant to show that the idea works, which it did.
In February 2009, the founders started a closed alpha. In May of the same year, they went public after getting about $35 million from three backers.
Over 190,000 projects have been funded by Kickstarter’s 18 million backers.
Stripe
Back in 2010, it wasn’t as easy to pay for something online as it is now. So it was hard for John and Patrick Collison to understand why online payments were so hard. They spent months learning about the business, how it works, and the problems people have with PayPal.
Then, they told their friends and family about the idea and saw how excited they were about it. The brothers went to work on their minimum viable product, which they called dev/payments. Even though this MVP’s design and features were limited, it had its first user in the first two weeks. The user was 280 North, which at the time was a YCombinator company.
This showed that the idea would work, so the brothers focused on making the product bigger and better so that it would be a success.
Monzo
Monzo is another company in the finance industry, and its minimum viable product (MVP) was built with products that already existed. The MVP was an application programming interface (API) that let you move money around, and the company invited people on its waiting list to check out what apps they could build using its API. This led to the creation of one of the best digital banks in the UK, which now has more than 4 million customers.
How to go about building your own MVP
As our MVP (Minimum Viable Product) examples have shown, the MVP development method works best for technical products like online services, apps, and websites. Here are six steps to help you make your own MVP.
Step 1: Market research
Market research helps you figure out who your ideal customers are and come up with an idea that meets their needs. Many of the MVPs on our list were made by people who were trying to meet their own needs. This means that their market research wasn’t done by a professional firm, but was instead based on their own experiences.
For example:
• Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s co-founders, needed help paying their rent.
• Rob Kalin, the founder of Etsy, needed a way to sell the wooden computers he made.
• As soon as Apple launched iTunes, Twitter’s creator Odeo had to innovate.
Step 2: Outline your idea
If no one buys it, it’s not an MVP. You need to explain how your product will help people. Why should they buy it? What do they get out of it?
For instance:
• Before they built any of Dropbox’s infrastructure, Arash Ferdowsi and Drew Houston made a video to explain what the company was about. This helped them figure out what people were interested in and how to give them something of value.
Step 3: Consider the design process from the user’s perspective
Imagine that you are the person who will be using your product or service. What do you think you’ll see? How do you think it will work? User satisfaction should always be at the top of your mind. Then move on to describing the steps of the process.
Step 4: Identify the project features
After choosing a design process, you’ll probably have a lot of features that can’t be finished or put in the MVP. You need to decide which ones are most important and which ones will be included in your project. Based on our MVP examples, Spotify focused on streaming music first, then added other features later.
Step 5: Build
Always try to make sure the quality of the build is at least as good as that of the finished product. A minimum viable product (MVP) is not a prototype. It needs to meet people’s needs and give them real value. Focus on how easy it is to use, how well it fits, and how intuitive it is as you build.
Step 6: BML: Build, measure, learn
The goal of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is to collect data that helps guide the development process. For a software MVP, the steps would be to get user feedback, find out what new features people want, and fix bugs and mistakes.
Conclusion
A new business must make sure that its products get to people as quickly as possible. It helps prove that the idea is good and brings in investors. We hope that startups will be able to build a successful minimum viable product by taking a page from this article’s list of successful MVP development services.
You want to build your MVP, right? Contact us at contact@zestminds.com or visit our website Zestminds to find out how we can bring your vision to life with beautiful designs, quality development, and continuous testing.
