MVP TYPES
When selecting what type of MVP you will build, think about the resources available to you to validate your idea.
THE 5 TYPES
Idea Visualization
Sell First, Build Afterwards
Concierge
Wizard of Oz
MLP
No-product MVP
A no-product or no code MVP is an approach for validating an idea and getting feedback without actual coding. And you have two ways to make this implemented.
Idea visualization
This approach is a way to test an opportunity hypothesis using marketing campaigns. Idea visualization does not contain any building blocks of your future product. It just represents or explains how it will look and what it will do. The approach can be implemented via landing pages, advertising campaigns, surveys, explainer videos, blogs, etc. The biggest advantage of idea visualization is its time and cost-efficiency relative to other MVP creation methods.
Example: the Dropbox MVP was a basic demo video, where Drew Houston, one of the co-founders, narrates how the technology is meant to work. It drove hundreds of thousands of users to the website and increased their beta waiting list by 15 times overnight.
Sell first, build afterwards
The idea of this approach is to start a presale of a product before actually building it. The most practical option is to launch a crowdfunding campaign on a relevant platform like Kickstarter. If you succeed, you not only get proof that your idea is in demand but also raise a sort of seed investment from contributors. The gist is to launch an up-and-coming campaign to sell a product that doesn’t exist yet. The benefit of this approach over idea visualization is that people not only commit by word but also by money. So, it might reflect actual revenue generating possibilities.
Example: A good example of the ‘sell first, build afterward’ MVP is LiveCode. They managed to pledge over $640K from over 3K contributors.
Product-mockup MVP
A mockup allows you to deliver a part of your future product’s functionality. Meanwhile, some complex automated features can be replaced with easier-to-build or manual-driven solutions. You have several options to create MVP using the product-mockup approach.
Concierge
To understand this approach, let’s take a product containing a recommendation system as the main feature. In this case, it’s not necessary to architect complex machine learning algorithms to build MVP app. The goal is to show how this feature will work and therefore the recommendation engine can be handled manually at this stage of development.
Example: Airbnb is a typical example of concierge MVP. Initially, the app had no sophisticated technology under the hood. The job to be done was performed by human operators also known as mechanical turks (not to be confused with a crowdsourcing marketplace known as Amazon Mechanical Turk). Later on, the product obtained automated functionalities. Check out the Airbnb lean canvas to see how the startup bootstrapped itself.
Wizard of Oz
Like concierge MVP, this approach still involves the use of manual labor to simulate core functionalities. However, the idea of the Wizard of Oz MVP is to hide this fact from a user. You may have just paper cards with drawings and someone who will shuffle in response to your actions, but the user will think it’s driven by AI (or magic:). Thus, the minimum viable product delivers a close-to-genuine user experience with a slight time delay.
Example: Zappos is one of the startups that launched as a Wizard of Oz MVP. It represented a website stuffed with a good selection of pictures of products they were going to sell. Orders were not processed automatically until the scale simply became too large to be handled by humans.
Single-Feature MVP
The name of the approach itself explains the concept. Since your users need to understand what it is meant for, the focus should be made on the core functionality. So, you need to build the MVP with a view to getting the user’s job done by at least 80%.
Example: Foursquare founders Dennis and Naveen started building an MVP with limited functionalities. It allowed you to check-in into different locations and would award you with different badges as a part of their gamification process. Only after the MVP became successful they added more features, transforming it into a sophisticated city guide.
MLP
This new stream in the lean startup methodology makes focus on user delight with the minimum viable product. Such combination results in a new approach called MLP or minimum lovable product. In this context, viable stands for something barely usable to get initial feedback, while lovable foresees a memorable first-time experience. The idea of MLP is to enhance a product’s basic set of features with an improved user experience through:
Design: illustrations, general visual appeal, micro interactions, etc.
Streamlined flow: enhanced user mental model through intuitive information architecture, known vocabulary, visual cues, etc.
Your MVP can be deemed MLP if the first-time UX delivers an emotional story. These lovable traits will help it stand out among alternative solutions.
Example: Spotify is a good example of the MLP. Though their first MVP was a landing page, the second barebones product version was not only functional but also user-attractive. In retrospect, we can deem this product lovable due to the hype it created in the market.
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