When creating a new product, it is sometimes difficult to know where exactly it will fit in the marketplace. There are also plenty of other elements to consider on the journey from concept to market such as cost, design and time frame. If you are a small startup, the likelihood is you do not have the funding to match a long and thorough design and development process. The solution, however, is simple; build a Minimal Viable Product (MVP).

One of the main reasons for creating an MVP is the chance to test your product. Building one allows you to provide core functionality quickly to see if your product will fit into a market and if so, where. If it’s well-received then you know you are going in the right direction so keep doing more of the same. If not, and there aren’t big changes required, there is still time to pivot and iterate on your current designs. If it happens to be a more significant issue, then at least you can identify the problems, and it will give you a better understanding of how to proceed. Your first design will almost always require several, possibly significant, tweaks to meet what the customer truly needs and to solve the problem you are trying to solve. Going the MVP route will allow you to do this and it has to start with testing.

Feedback from customers is a must when it comes to helping you develop a quality product. The sooner you get feedback on a feature, the sooner you can iterate and improve. Keep features basic during the MVP stage, and you can build them out later when you have customer validation on them, allowing for development time to be spent on what’s important.