What is an MVP and how can it help my business?

MVP stands for Minimal Viable Product and refers to the simplest form of any service a business aims to bring to market. They can help breathe life into new business ideas without incurring significant costs and regret for SMEs.

Risk is word that can make the hardiest of businessmen anxious, but MVPs help to paint a clearer picture of a finalised product before they dip into their pockets. This is particularly useful if the intended product is complex.

For example, if you wanted to open a restaurant that specialises in pasta made from an old family recipe, you might first consider opening a pop-up restaurant for a weekend or renting a food truck for a month. In either of these MVPs, you could test out your recipe and streamline your process for prepping and cooking.

So, where do we come in? Well, if you're thinking about updating your businesses' software solutions, or even just wanting to add new feature, but don't have the time and money to plough into something you're not completely certain will benefit the company, we can create an MVP to test the solutions' viability.

One of the simplest methods to test demand for a product is to create a website for it and then measure its traffic. This could be in the form of a landing page where users are invited to click for more information. The number of clicks could then be compared to visitor numbers to determine the amount of interest in the product.

Rebranding a website or application can be tested in the same way. For instance, you could advertise the new layout on an existing platform and provide a link for more information. The link would explain that the feature is currently under development and from this you could again measure the amount of clicks to visitors.

Once an MVP has been created and tested by your target audience, you’ll be able to gather enough sufficient evidence from the resulting data and feedback to decide as to whether time and money would be better spent elsewhere, or if the finalised product would be profitable and worth investing in.

Overall, the purpose of an MVP is to keep a project as lean as possible, so you can gain certainty about its viability. By creating and testing an original idea before going full gung-ho, you’ll have the added benefit of being able to fine-tune the production, find an audience, tweak the idea based on experience, and ultimately, save both time and money.

At 16i, we're always happy to help improve your business through adept bespoke software solutions, so why not give our friendly team a call today on 01242 654 000 to find out what the right solution is for you?