• Home
  • Services
    • OUR SERVICES

      We solve challenging market challenges and build all varieties of custom and platform-based frameworks and provide comprehensive end-to-end software development and IT services.


      Ask Us
    • Overview

      Professional Services

      Software Dedicated Team, GEO, EOR

      Team Augmentation & Full team Outsourcing

      1. Python
      2. Node
      3. .NET
      4. React, Angular, Vue

      Enterprise Digital Transformation

      Application Support & Maintenance

      Devops Services

      Software Consultancy

    • Custom Software Development

      Android & iOS Mobile App Development

      React Native Mobile App Development

      Custom Application Development

      Web Application Development

      Product Development for Startups & Established Business

      Internet of Things (IoT)

      Industry Expertise

      Data Analytics & Intelligence

      BigCommerce

      Shopify

  • Process
    • OUR PROCESS

      We solve market challenges and build all varieties of custom and platform-based frameworks and provide comprehensive end-to-end software development and IT services.

    • Overview

      Fully Outsourced

      Dedicated Teams

    • Team Augmentation

      Fixed Scope Projects

      Time & Material (T&M)

  • Company
    • OUR COMPANY

      Since 2016, we have been the first and last stop for companies worldwide that need support to develop digital products and custom software solutions. Our integrated resource model paves the way for your technology projects to be completed sooner, with less effort.


      contact us
    • About us

      What we do

      Our story

      Our core values

      Customer’s feedback

      What makes us different?

      Creative, Quality & Speed

      Project timeline

      Long term success

      FAQ

    • Portfolio/Case studies

      E-commerce

      Education

      Finance

      Hospitality

      HR

      Legal

      Logistic

      Marketing

      Operation

      Real Estate

      Retail

      Sport

  • Blog
    • BLOG

      Since 2016, we have been the first and last stop for companies worldwide that need support to develop digital products and custom software solutions. Our integrated resource model paves the way for your technology projects to be completed sooner, with less effort.

      View all blogs
    • Statistics for 2023 on Mobile App Growth and Usage

      RECENT BLOGS

      Statistics for 2023 on Mobile App Growth and Usage

      Finally, the year 2022 has come to a close. Furthermore, in this post-pandemic context, companies are still trying...

      Read the blog >>
      The Best Hybrid Mobile App Development Frameworks in 2022

      RECENT BLOGS

      The Best Hybrid Mobile App Development Frameworks in 2022

      Having a mobile presence has become essential for businesses to survive and reach a broader audience in today's...

      Read the blog >>
      Top 8 Helpful Web Usability Tips For Web Designers

      RECENT BLOGS

      Top 8 Helpful Web Usability Tips For Web Designers

      Making it simple for users of your website to locate the information they require when they require it is the...

      Read the blog >>
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
    • Link copied

    • Link copied

Contact Us
  • Home
  • Services

    Our Services

    • Professional Services
    • Overview Software Consultancy Team Augmentation & Full Team Outsourcing Enterprise Digital Transformation Application Support & Maintenance, Hosting Devops Services Hosting
    • Custom Software Development Services
    • Overview Android & iOS Mobile App Development React Native Mobile App Development Custom Application Development Web Application Development Product Development for Startups & Established Business Internet of Things (IoT)
    • Industry Expertise
    • Overview Education Technology Data Analytics & Intelligence BigCommerce Shopify
  • Process

    Our Process

    • Fully Outsourced
    • Dedicated Teams
    • Team Augmentation
    • Fixed Scope Projects
    • Time & Material (T&M)
  • Blog
  • Careers
  • More

    More

    • About Us
    • What Makes Us Different?
    • Contact Us
    • Case Studies
Home Blog How does a minimum viable product (MVP) reduce software development risks?
Blog Post
Matt Long CEO
July 08, 2020

How does a minimum viable product (MVP) reduce software development risks?

5 min read
Voiced by Amazon Polly
Table of contents show
1. Overconfidence in unvalidated ideas sinks software projects
2. How do founders and product owners avoid these mistakes?
3. An MVP gets your product into customer hands faster
4. What is involved in the MVP approach?
5. Build a solution your customers can’t live without

Your customer’s point of view is incredibly important. Knowing what people want, how they act, and the factors that drive their decision-making is some of the most business-critical data companies can possess. 

Using insights from the people you expect to buy and use your offering will improve your offering. It helps ensure the products, solutions and experiences you create deliver real value—in other words, something your users actually want.

For startup founders and other businesses with software development projects in mind, being customer-centric is key to successfully realising your idea. Learning from customers and shaping a valuable product that you can make profitable quickly is best achieved by delivering a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

Will customers actually use and pay for your software or app? Know you’re on the right track with an MVP.

Overconfidence in unvalidated ideas sinks software projects

There are many reasons why startups fail, but some of the biggest mistakes that software entrepreneurs make include:

  • Putting too much confidence in their untested and unvalidated idea.
  • Delayed launch through overbuilding or over-investing in their initial product.
  • Lacking the direction and flexibility to pivot.

If you can’t address a genuine need in the market and do it quickly, your startup is on shaky ground.

In fact, you risk investing a significant amount of time and money developing software that:

  • Does not solve a problem for any potential customers/users.
  • Customers/users do not understand how to use or enjoy using.
  • Includes (costly) features that customers/users will never use.
  • Takes too long to complete and achieve revenue.

How do founders and product owners avoid these mistakes? 

Any one of the above consequences can sink a product-based business before it even gets to the operational phase. In terms of causes, the common denominator tends to be a lack of customer/user involvement in the development of the product.  

Before embarking on a software project, entrepreneurs and product owners must do due diligence by defining the problem they’re attempting to solve, the size of the market that needs the problem solved, and competitor solutions.

But knowing that a problem and a potential market exists is not enough. The next hurdle your company or startup faces is knowing whether the software you’re building is a viable solution to the problem?

Essentially its a ‘chicken-egg’ dilemma. Only the people who will use your product can tell you whether it’s what they want, yet until you’ve built the product you won’t have any users.

To truly understand product-market fit, you need to test your idea in the market. The ‘market’ is real people—people whose problems you believe you are solving.  

‘Viable’ means valuable: build a core feature-set quickly so you can test with customers and improve. 

An MVP gets your product into customer hands faster

A Minimal Viable Product (MVP) makes it possible to collect learnings from users by building a minimum set of valuable features, developed with minimal effort. Bringing an MVP to market allows you to engage users and test your assumptions. 

A software startup or any company that offers software products should have the goal of getting an MVP into production and into the hands of real customers as fast as possible.

Doing so helps your business answer these questions:

  • Is this actually a solution to a problem facing my customers?
  • Is this the most effective and desirable way to solve the problem?
  • Do customers care enough about the value on offer to pay for it?

Regardless of the maturity of your business, if you plan to build successful software, you need to be invested in continually obtaining, analysing and acting on feedback from current and potential users of your product.

What is involved in the MVP approach?

The MVP approach is not about rushing a product to market. 

It’s about carefully determining and efficiently producing the core features that need to be validated, gathering feedback from early adopters, then applying what you learn to build improvements (iterations) or pivot. 

Guidelines for founders on the MVP approach include:

  • Prioritise features and build only what is initially required to deliver customer value.
  • Take your MVP to market and validate through beta tests, analysis, focus groups and interviews.
  • Take customer insights on what does/doesn’t work and review product requirements.
  • Release improvements quickly and cost-effectively as you refine product-market fit.

Once you’ve successfully executed your MVP and released it to your users, your software development team must continuously be assessing your customers’ feedback and acting on it in short iterations.

Delivering an MVP allows you to make purposeful, incremental improvements to your software.

Build a solution your customers can’t live without 

When you have a big idea, it’s tempting to forge ahead until your vision is fully formed. The concept of gradually building and refining multiple versions of your software or app through a back and forth dialogue with customers can seem messy and time-consuming. 

But consider this: customers don’t care about products. They care about the results and feelings that a product makes possible. They care about their problems being solved, feeling more capable, having more time, money, or prestige, and so on.

Building software or an app without customer involvement is a big risk. Convoluted, non-intuitive and unfocused solutions don’t solve problems—if anything, they create new ones.

Customers don’t clamour to use products with the most features. They get excited if and when solutions make their lives better in a specific, desirable way. The only people who can tell you when you’ve nailed it are your customers.

An MVP and iterative development of your software helps to bring ‘your vision’ and ‘what customers want’ together. The MVP approach increases the likelihood you’ll solve the right problem in the right way, to generate sustainable revenue. 

The goal is to build the product your users genuinely need and are eager to pay for, not the product you think they want.

Customer Experience entrepreneurs entrepreneurship Minimum Viable Product MVP Product SAAS startups
CEO - Matt Long - Groove Techonology - We Build Amazing Software For Your Business CEO - Matt Long - Groove Techonology - We Build Amazing Software For Your Business
Matt Long CEO AT GROOVE TECHNOLOGY
Matt Long is the founder and CEO of Groove Technology. Groove Technology recruit at the top of their market, providing cutting-edge software development services to partners located across the world through a unique, integrated resource model. You can get in touch with him here, or find out more about Groove Technology Services.
Recent Blogs
  • Statistics for 2023 on Mobile App Growth and Usage
    December 15, 2022

    Statistics for 2023 on Mobile App Growth and Usage

  • The Best Hybrid Mobile App Development Frameworks in 2022
    December 1, 2022

    The Best Hybrid Mobile App Development Frameworks in 2022

  • Top 8 Helpful Web Usability Tips For Web Designers
    November 16, 2022

    Top 8 Helpful Web Usability Tips For Web Designers

  • Design-First or API-First: What’s the Best Approach?
    November 12, 2022

    Design-First or API-First: What’s the Best Approach?

  • How to build a cross-platform mobile app?
    November 8, 2022

    How to build a cross-platform mobile app?

What it’s like working at Groove Technology?

View
START YOUR JOURNEY
TO AMAZING SOFTWARE

If you have any questions, our team is happy to support!



START YOUR NEW
CAREER AT GROOVE

If you have any questions, our team is happy to support!

Your Resume

App demo request

If you want to experience this app on iOS, please contact us to be added to the test environment.

Contact us
Refresh Page

Please rotate your screen horizontally for the best experience.

Career Contact
Business Request
X
  • Home
  • Services
  • Process
  • Company
  • Blog
  • Careers
  • Contact Us
Groove Technology - Software Company in Australia - Viet Nam - Singapore - VN Flag
VIETNAM

Floor 18, Havana Tower, 132 Ham Nghi, Ben Thanh Ward, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Groove Technology - Software Company in Australia - Viet Nam - Singapore - AU Flag
AUSTRALIA

Suite 115, 358 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3205.

Groove Technology - Software Company in Australia - Viet Nam - Singapore - HK Flag
HONG KONG

5/F, Yat Chau Building, 262 Des Voeux Road Central, Hong Kong.


Copyright ©2022 Groove Technology. All Rights Reserved.
Security Statement. Modern Slavery Statement.

BACK TO TOP