Learn the right Agile approach to build MVP for startups that won’t fail. Overcome the obstacles & test your MVP to gauge the success of your startup.

1. How to Build MVP for
Startups:
Highlighting the Key
Things to Take Care
of While Launching
an MVP
www.bacancytechnology.com

2. Quick Summary: Entrepreneurs across the
world are aware of the fact that what a boon
MVP is for their startups. However, despite
developing MVP before launching their
product in the market, businesses are
failing. Smart entrepreneurs face struggles
to establish a successful minimum working
model that is feasible to sustain in the
market. This blog encloses the right
technique of creating an MVP with the Agile
methodology, the step-by-step guideline to
build MVP for startups, the types of MVP,
and the process of checking the
performance of your MVP. Also, get to know
about the four most successful MVPs that
have turned into multinational companies
that are making a profit of billions today.
Let’s have a look at things you need to take
care of while launching MVP.

3. 1. The Power of MVP
2. MVP- The Process
3. MVP and Agile Development 4
. How to Build MVP for startups?
5. Types of MVP
6. Check the performance of your MVP
7. Successful MVP turned Billion Dollar
Companies
8. Conclusion
Table of Contents

4. The Power of
MVP

5. I start by sharing an incident that took place
in San Francisco in 2007. Brian Chesky and
Joe Gebbia had moved to New York, and the
city was lit because of the International
Design Conference. Visitors from across the
globe had come to NY, and amongst them
were some of their friends who weren’t able
to get a hotel to stay. All the hotels, motels,
and rooms were booked and reserved. The
duo offered their friends their apartment to
stay for the night and got some extra cash
for their sustenance.
With this incidence, an idea struck their
minds, and they utilized this opportunity
for a business. They bought a few airbeds
and launched a website, “Air Bed and
Breakfast.” This was the birth of an MVP.
Their business idea was to provide visitors a
place to get a bed to sleep and breakfast in
the morning.

6. Their idea succeeded, and their first guests
became the first customers of Airbnb. This
is how the duo- Brian Chesky and Joe
Gebbia built Airbnb- the now $26 billion
company
This young duo’s approach is what we are
going to know about today- MVP –
Minimum Viable Product and its
importance that why startups should
always consider building MVP before
launching a full version of the product.

7. MVP- The
Process

8. Eric Ries popularized the Minimum Viable
Product technique, enabling you to develop
a basic working model of your product.
We are going to concentrate on the MVP
process rather than how to build Minimum
Viable Product. The method of attaining the
Minimum Viable Product is used repeatedly
by continually modifying the product
design and upgrading by the team members
until the final one is achieved.

9. The final version of the MVP product
provides the most validated learning about
the end-user/customer. MVP consists of all
the mandatory and core features that a user
wants in your product.
In each step of how to build MVP for
startups process, you discover the risks and
clear out the assumptions. You are left with
only the core functionality in your product
core.
Let us consider a scenario to understand the
importance of the MVP process:
An entrepreneur wanted to build MVP for
startups – a mobile app for restaurant
owners to help them in their internal
functioning and set customer bookings. He
plans everything with his team and finalizes
the set of essential features for the app. He
finds few friends who are interested in
investing and makes them the app co-
founders.

10. They wanted a website and not an app
for their restaurant.
They were not technically skilled to
operate emails and stick with the app
for the entire day.
They didn’t need any digital medium to
aid their business. They were okay with
the ongoing practices.
After the hard work of a year, with his team,
he built an MVP app as imagined, with the
core features that can help restaurant
owners establish their business more
robust. It contains features like drag and
drop interface, event management, reviews,
social networking, real-time messaging,
check-in options, photo gallery, maps, and
more.
However, when he took his app idea to the
restaurant owners, they were reluctant to
accept it for a few primary reasons:

11. In such a case, we can relate the
entrepreneur’s situation with this quote by
Peter Drucker, which says that no matter
how efficiently you undertake any
procedure, it is of zero use if that was not
needed in the first place.
Such a situation of the entrepreneur would
not arise if he had gone step-by-step
following the MVP process, where, in each
phase, you qualify your decisions by asking
two questions:

12. What am I risking the most?
What little can I test and experiment to
judge my assumption?
As he qualifies and removes redundant
obstacles in the iterative steps, he would
not have reached the end-product that no
one desired.
In today’s digital edge, to build MVP for
startups is most required of all the times.
Here is the reason why.

13. In the last few years, entrepreneurs have
increased the use of MVPs than ever before.
Looking at the startup failure rate, the
traditional way of thinking about an app
idea and executing is no longer practical.
To roll-out a full-fledged product with
success guaranteed, you need to develop a
Minimum Viable Product MVP for the same
first. Before we go ahead, let us check out
the three primary features that your MVP
must-have.

14. Sufficient features for customers to
adopt your product and those features
should quantify your base idea.
A feedback mechanism that will help
you learn more about what your
customers want in your product.
Future benefits for your first customers.
Must-have features for
your MVP:

15. You may either develop your MVP with any
one of the two methods: Agile or Waterfall.
However, as you compare the traditional
Waterfall method with the Agile approach,
you will get the most efficient advantage
out of the MVP development process done
by following the Agile process. You might be
wondering how to define MVP in Agile;
here’s how.
MVP and Agile
Development

16. You can progress your MVP development
only after each phase is wholly developed
and tested in the Waterfall method. The
next stage is entirely reliant on the first.
Such a process is lengthier and has a high
interdependence rate, which may lead to a
crash. You may consider Waterfall is a
sequential process.
In the Agile method, how to build MVP in an
incremental pattern. Your scrum team
starts working on the final version of your
MVP. The team works for a short period,
known as a Sprint. Within 2-3 weeks, a
Sprint delivers a final version of the
product, which again enters another Sprint.

17. During a Sprint, the team regularly comes
together for meetings, generally known as
stand-ups, quick 5-10 minute meetings. In
the stand-ups, they discuss the everyday
progress of each team member and find out
and eradicate the obstacles that hinder
growth.

18. As the Agile MVP development is based
on dividing the project onto small
sprints, the team can quickly respond to
changes or market needs.
With the help of MVP developed with
Agile methodology, your customers get
your end-product sooner and give
feedback. This feedback can help you
with your product’s further
development ahead.
After each sprint, your team tests your
product and reworks on it immediately
instead of waiting until the project’s
end. This saves a tremendous amount of
hard work and time.
The Agile MVP development method
encourages product building keeping in
mind your customers.
The Advantages of Using
Agile MVP Development
process:

19. How to Build
MVP for
Startups?

20. Here is a step-by-step guide to build tried
and tested MVP. Let’s take a look and
significant thing that you need to keep into
consideration while launching an MVP.
1. Market Analysis
First of all, you need to ascertain what your
customers need. Your product may be a
new invention that fills a needy void, or it
can be an upgraded version of an existing
solution. Your competitors will have
thought of all the possibilities, and hence,
you must study the market before you
present your product.

21. To ease your research, you can set up short-
term and long-term goals. These targets will
enable you to overcome all the
shortcomings on your way. Most of the
startups fail because their product was not
needed in the market- there was no market
demand for the solution.

22. Once you have a clear idea of what you
intend to build, you have your unique
selling point USP. With this robust and firm
pioneering step, your building above is
going to stand tall and secure. Some tools
that can help you with market research and
competitor analysis by providing website
traffic, engagement geography, and useful
keywords and much more are:
SpyFu
SimilarWeb
QuickSprout
SEMrush
Alexa

23. How will your product be useful to your
customers?
Your product answers solutions for
which problems of the customers?
Why should users buy your product?
2. Express your idea
Only you can generate the value of your
product. It is your obligation to convey the
importance of your product to the
customer. Bring the following points in
front of your customers:
As you will express your product idea to the
customers and generate an urge, it will only
trigger them. So, that’s why it always
advisable to build MVP for startups before
you start developing the product.

24. 3. Define user flow
Next, you must design your product so that
the user gets stuck to your product and
senses the next step to take. This is possible
if you develop the product in a user-friendly
format. The best example of MVP to make
you understand a smooth and intuitive
user-flow is the Zappos website.

25. Zappos enables you to shop shoes online,
and hence on the home screen, you will
come across all the relevant tasks like
finding shoes, buying, managing, and
receiving orders. Your customer will be
happy as they can solve all their problems
with your product intuitively. Once these
phases are clear, then you should move to
decide the features for your product.

26. 4. Define MVP features
Now that you have finalized all the stages
that your user will take to use your product,
start creating a list of features that you
think your user might want for each step.
However, you have to eliminate the
features that are so good to have but not
necessary.
At each stage, think about which features
will be indeed helpful to your users. With
that ruling out, you will have a list of
minimal features that your product should
have. Ensure that your user has just the
right parts for a beginner product, which
keeps them hungry for more features, yet
satisfied with the minimal elements.

27. After identifying the features, you need to
prioritize them. Classify the features like
must-have, should-have, like-to-have, and
add-ons. Prioritize those with must-have
tags because your MVP will have only the
essential minimum features.

28. 5. Build your MVP
Finally, now that you have assembled all the
MVP features, you must keep a strict
balance between the minimum and
workable. Other things that you must take
care of are:
Your MVP should serve at least one target
audience.
It should solve one core problem.
A satisfying and engaging user-experience
Develop your MVP gradually and quickly
launch it.
6. Build, measure, learn
If you think that developing your MVP has
done all the work for you, you are not right.
Post delivering your MVP; you have to test
its functionality and acceptance from the
audience. Collect feedback from the users
and start working accordingly to improvise
your product.

29. Types of MVP

30. It is not mandatory to launch an MVP before
you develop your product. Instead, you may
follow varied approaches that work in your
favor. The idea is to get your target
customers’ viewpoints regarding your
product. As you get favorable responses and
feedback, then you are good to go.
Here are some examples of MVP types that
can prove beneficial before you present your
product to the market.
Landing Pages:
A customer will see a gateway to your
business via your landing page. It is the first
mark of your business. It’s the front-face of
your product. Hence, make sure that your
landing covers all the explanations regarding
your business, your product/solution, and
how your product/solution will solve their
problems and ease their lives.

31. Urge your customers to join or sign-up with
you on the landing page, and such a
conversation will turn into a potential lead
for your business.
Airbnb had first set up a landing page,
which was their MVP, and ultimately the
page enabled their business idea to explode
into success.
Explainer videos:
Videos are so comfortable. Users have to
make no efforts, and the video explanation
accomplishes most of the work. A video has
the potential to present your business idea
so aptly, and your users will accept your
solution even when they’d not felt the
problem in the first place.

32. Dropbox developed a video as their MVP,
and overnight, they had made 75000 sign-
ups. That’s the power of an explainer video.
Your technical team can portray the
functionality of your product, its features in
the video.
By sharing a picturization, you share a
motion that is much more helpful than just
sharing your vague and imaginary idea in
front of your customers.
https://youtu.be/w4eTR7tci6A

33. The Wizard of Oz:
In this MVP pattern, you trick your
customers showing them that you are
selling the fully-fledged product when, in
reality, you are making all the effort to do
the behind-the-scenes work. Though tricky,
this one is a beneficial MVP testing solution.
If your idea gets a lot of appreciation, you
will be overburdened. But you can then
switch to building your product
systematically. The Wizard of Oz technique
is also called Manual-First MVP or
Flinstoning.
This approach was implemented by Zappos,
where the founder Nick Swinmurn would
buy the shoes once he gets an order, instead
of setting up an inventory.

34. The Concierge:
This method of MVP development is many
times confused with the Wizard of Oz. The
difference between the two is that you
replicate your automated system into a
human-service format in the Concierge, and
your customers know about it.
Wealthfront initially started their
automated service in the form of manually
created and delivered investment plans.
Use this method when you are not sure
about how your customers will accept your
solution or not. And choose the Wizard of
Oz method when you have explicit
knowledge and surety of your answer.

35. Piecemeal:
This MVP is a compound between the
Wizard of Oz and the Concierge. The idea is
that you use the existing websites, tools,
and services to present your business idea.
So, you use the bits and pieces of several
existing solutions and implement them to
check if your idea will be accepted.
Groupon used this way of MVP by
combining WordPress, Apple script, and
Apple Mail. However, the only restriction of
the Piecemeal method of developing MVP is
that collaborations might not be easy.

36. Single featured MVP:
As the name says, this version MVP
encaptures only the core feature of your
product so that your users are not
distracted by other elements. It gives you a
clear understanding of users’ feedback.
Moreover, you save tremendously on the
development time and efforts. FourSquare
had initially used this method by availing
simple check-ins on social-media platforms.

37. Check the
Performance
of Your MVP

38. If you think that just by developing a
successful MVP will get you there, you are
wrong. After creating your MVP, you need
to check how effectively it performs and
how many customers are interested in your
product.
Here are some of the methods to check the
performance of your MVP:
Engagement-
You can keep an eye on your visitors by
checking how often and who access your
application/website. It will determine the
current potential of your MVP, along with
the future scope of your business.

39. Word of mouth-
You can predict your MVP success by taking
feedback from your users. Things like- what
intrigued them to use your product/app,
what problems they are facing when using
the app, etc. will help you learn your
customers’ minds.
Feedback-
Determine your active application users’
feedback, and it shall aid you in qualitative
results.
Sign-ups-
How many users join or register with your
application can identify the strength of your
MVP.

40. Client-acquisition cost-
You must calculate how much you’re
spending on the marketing to gain traction
from users. This way, you get to perceive
how much an acquired user costs you.
A number of active users-
Find out the number of active users using
your application regularly. This will tell you
more about your MVP compared to the
number of downloads and likes tell you
Churn rate-
Frequently calculate the number of users
that have reluctantly stopped using your
service/application. You can keep a count of
your active users at the beginning of the
week and end of the week or the beginning
and end of the month.

41. Successful
MVP turned
Billion Dollar
Companies

42. Let me share some notable Minimum Viable
Product examples that have now turned up
to become successful profit-making
businesses.
Amazon
Jeff Bezos first started Amazon as an online
book shop. An MVP with the idea of selling
popular books online in the upcoming two
decades became the most comprehensive
online shopping destination with exclusive
features. Amazon is the largest of all
retailers in the world.

43. Facebook
A linking platform for college students,
earlier known as Thefacebook, has gained
the virulent attraction from college
students and individuals of all age groups.
Mark Zuckerburg’s answer to how to create
Minimum Viable Product needs no more
explanation to realize its value.

44. Instagram
Instagram, which first came as an image
filtering mobile app, nine years ago, has
become the most frequently used social
media platform.

45. Zappos
The founder of Zappos, Nick Swinmurn,
hiked his great idea of selling shoes online
without owning an inventory. His MVP was
just the website, where he listed the shoes;
on every order, he would purchase the shoe
from the store and deliver it to his
customer.

46. I am sure that by now you have cleared all
your queries and are ready to build MVP for
startups. Remember, your MVP does not
have to be perfect! Follow the guided steps
and strategies to build an Agile MVP for
your business idea. Optimize your path to
success with the Agile leaders at Bacancy
Technology, who will help you to develop
your MVP in an Agile manner, which will
deliver risk-free results. Our MVP
development services will enable you to
kick-start your Startup. In case of doubt
and suggestions on how to build MVP for
startups, feel free to get in touch.
Conclusion

47. Thank You