Startup MVP — Do’s and Don’ts

Since you are here and you’re reading this I’m sure you have an idea and you are ready to start developing an app for your startup, but you’re not sure what you should do exactly. Allow me to give you my perspective on MVP.

What is MVP?

Minimum viable product, remember MINIMUM. That’s what people forget when they’re building their app. Don’t confuse MVP with full product. Full product is something you want your app to be in the future, MVP is something minimum that is needed for you to test the market and to see how users react to it.

You need to adjust yourself and your app quickly, it’s hard to do that when your app is robust. If you fail to adjust to the market or pivot, failure is inevitable. Facebook didn’t start as full-featured social network, Snapchat started as simple messaging app, Uber started only with cars now they operate with any other vehicle…

So tell us Do’s and Don’ts

Do give user one main thing that makes your app special.
Don’t overwhelm them, don’t give them everything all at once.

To be honest there is only one Do for the MVP you need to have in mind.

Imagine handing your friend a box full of candies, different kind of candies. He’ll take a box and try them all at once and he’ll probably be confused. Flavors will mix up, he’ll get tired of trying it all and maybe he won’t be interested into it anymore because you gave him everything you have.

Now imagine handing him just one special candy you made just for him. He will probably take that one candy and pay attention just to it and see how great it is. He will want more of it and top of all he’ll want that candy but little bit “upgraded”. You’ll get feedback back and you’ll have time to improve your candy.

The same goes for your app and users using it. Start small, give them just one thing that makes your app special.

You probably don’t have resources, people or money as an early stage startup to work on full product. Updating the project, fixing bugs, maintaining and keeping it stable is too much to do in this early stage. Simply it’s just going to take too much of your time on development and you also need to think of marketing, getting users and so on.

App is a tool, not just a product!

My first startup was all about product, all about web site. You know, like: make it functional, make it perfect, sell the product, sell features… Damn, I was wrong.

“Feeling/philosophy” is the thing you need to offer. For us here in Beyondi, app is just a tool to accomplish what’s really important and that is a philosophy, a feeling you have while using specific app.

Let me give you an example:

“Fifty Shades of Gray” is supposed to be erotic romance novel, but still everyone is reading it because it gives away a message saying: Yes I’m erotic novel, but it is acceptable reading me in public. Why you ask? Well it is nicely packed into a novel, unlike PlayBoy for example.

Apple’s products are very nice and expensive, I bet you can find another products good enough or even better but much cheaper. But the feeling you get when using Apple’s products is something different.

To sum up

I have a pretty simple rule: Don’t bomb your users with a lot of features. Make your and user’s life easier. Be mysterious and introduce new features periodically. Keep your users engaged and interested into your app.

And to quote one very wise man, Simon Sinek: “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe”