The Dangers of a Low Quality & Low Functionality Software MVPTom Green, Co-Founder @ VerticodeJanuary 11, 2023, 4 min read
A common misunderstanding when planning and building a software MVP is that the look, feel, and functionality doesn't matter. This couldn't be more wrong - MVPs need to be built quickly but you're not going to get the critial feedback you need if users won't use your product! Let's explore why it's important your MVP looks high quality, and functions as users would expect...
What is an MVP?
An Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the first version of a product used to test out the market and gain customer feedback. It is stripped down to the absolute core functionality to make it as quick to build and launch as possible. MVPs are a very useful tool to learn about customer behaviour and to validate your ideas before putting too much time or resource into the wrong features, and every entrepreneur (especially in tech!) should get familiar with the process and benefits.
Viable Is Key
Although MVPs should be fast to build and launch it's important that they are viable. It's a minimum viable product, not a lowest quality product. You will be using your MVP to test your market and get customer feedback about your ideas - the worst thing you can do is spend time building an MVP that doesn't get used due to low quality.
If a customer sees your product is slow, lacks basic functionality and looks like an old Web 1.0 site you will never get anything useful from them. As best you will get the feedback about the look and feel, and at worst you won't even get a user past the landing page.
You need your users to use the MVP as a real product to be able to get real feedback. If you're charging money for your MVP you won't know if users aren't paying because the idea if flawed, or if they don't trust your product. It's critical that your MVP instills trust in your users and you can rely on the data it produces.
Have a Professional Design
Although an MVP will be quick to build you need to make sure you don't fall into the trap of not worrying about the look and feel. Customers need to feel comfortable that they're working with a legitimate application!
Make sure your MVP looks clean, modern, and is easy to understand and use. If you have your branding ready then make sure to brand the MVP with your colours, fonts and logo. You want users to know they're using your product, and not a boring and unbranded shell. This also has the added benefit you will get feedback from your users on branding!
Often, the best way of ensuring your MVP's design is professional and easy to understand is by keeping it basic. In general, the over-complication of design during the early stages of product development can create confusion for users when the aim is to get customers using the core functionality. Minimalist design, therefore, looks professional and focusses on the key functions.
Key Tips for Selecting Functionality
When deciding on functionality for your MVP you need to keep it simple, but still provide the core features required to get users and test out your idea. There are two aspects to consider:
The core functionality needed to make the product viable, hence Minimum Viable Product
The functionality which will help you, the founder, collect customer insights and start to create traction.
We've already discussed the 1st aspect in an early paragraph. With regards to the 2nd point, there are functionalities which enable this. As a basic measure, always make sure your users have to sign up for their own account (so you can keep track of who is using your product). Even if they are not paying, this means that you will be collected details of customers and beginning to build your customer book for when you move to the monetisation stage. Similarly, it will allow you to track their behaviours more accurately. If users can't sign up you won't know if they will, and asking users what they 'would' do is notoriously unreliable. If you don't have something to offer your early adopting users you won't be able to get feedback on your ideas.
Conclusion
In conclusion, you should not confuse your Minimum Viable Product with your Minimum Quality Product. Viability is essential for accurate measuring customer sentiment and behaviour towards your offering. Having a professional, clean design is a low-effort exercise which can help focus your customers on the functionality being tested. Similarly, ensure your customers are able to effectively interact with the functionality. If customers simply can't use features, despite their best efforts, you will struggle to collect meaningful feedback and ascertain what the product direction should take.
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