The Best Approach to Building Products with POC & MVP Services

Product development can be a difficult process. That's because the road from a brilliant idea to a viable product in the market often has plenty of obstacles. The majority of promising concepts don’t make it because of hazy pathways forward, overspending on development, or the product doesn’t meet customer needs. The best way to navigate the product development industry is through phases - using the POC & MVP Services. The POC and MVP steps allow for validating ideas, tracking costs, and building iterative products the customer wants. In this blog, we’ll look at the best way to leverage your design and development process by utilizing POC & MVP Services so your product development process is as simple, efficient, helpful, and valuable for the customer building a market ready product.

Understanding POC & MVP: Laying the Foundation

Before getting into the preferred approach, it's important to have a clear understanding of what POC and MVP are, and why they are critical pieces to any successful product development project.

Proof of Concept (POC): Testing Technical Feasibility

A Proof of Concept is an internal, small-scale prototype aimed at testing and demonstrating the technological feasibility of a core idea. The primary objectives when utilizing the POC & MVP Service at this stage would be to:

• Answer the Question: "Can this product be technically built?"

• Focus On: Core functionality, requisite technology, and performance.

• Outcome: A working prototype or technical demonstration that supports core engineering assumptions and validates that the proof of concept can be developed.

Minimum Viable Product (MVP): Test the Market

An MVP is the first working edition of your product, shared with a limited number of early adopters. It aims to test your business hypothesis in the real world, and the focus is now on:

• Answer the Question: "Will customers actually use and value this product?"

• Focus On: Solving a core problem for a target audience with just enough features to provide utility.

• Outcome: A lean and deployable product that captures valuable user feedback, validates the market for your product, and informs your future MVP Development.

• The Optimal Method: A Structured, Iterative Cycle The optimal method for building products from POC & MVP Services is a cycle of iteration that is based on continual feedback from customers.

The cycle incorporates key things to do below.

1. Start with a Good Hypothesis and Goals

• Specify the problem you are trying to solve, and narrow down exactly what the value of the product will be.

• Create measurable success goals for both the POC (e.g. successful API integration) and the MVP (e.g. 100 active users, 20% retention).

2. Focus on Core Functionality for your MVP

• Resist, to the extent you can, "feature creep" and building a complete solution upfront.

• Identify the single most important feature that resolves the primary pain point for the user.

• Deliver a finished high-quality version of only these critical features to create that "wow" effect for your users.

3. Order and Systemize User Feedback

• An excellent process for acquiring feedback is the most valuable thing you can obtain in MVP Development.

• Develop multiple feedback collection channels, such as in app analytics, user surveys, and user one-on-ones.

• Organize a clear process for taking in feedback, analyzing it, and converting it into valuable development priority.

4. Utilize Agile Development Methods

• Use an iterative development framework, like Scrum or Kanban, that's meant for developing through iterations.

• Use short "sprints" to develop features and test/release them quickly. Don't hesitate to change your strategy based on your new learnings or user feedback.

5. Select an Appropriate Technology Stack

• Use technologies and platforms that support rapid prototyping and that can grow with you.

• Use cloud technologies (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) to manage your infrastructure.

• Consider using low-code or no-code, in the early stages, so you can speed up the POC and MVP build.

6. Measure and Analyze Key Metrics

• Set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your MVP.

• Focus on metrics that measure value and user engagement e.g, daily active users, session duration, user retention rate, conversion goals.

• Use this within your decision-making process to establish what features to build, enhance or drop.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. When do we commit to a POC vs. an MVP?

A POC should be used when your idea introduces a lot of technical risk or novel technology. Most often if the technology isn't in question and your only questionable engagement is market demand, you can happily move to MVP.

2. How much should we spend on a POC vs. an MVP?

The spend should be as little as possible but sufficient to achieve the learnings you want to develop in each stage. The key outcome of POC & MVP Services is to help validate your assumptions to mitigate risk as efficiently as possible, not create the perfect product.

3. What will be the biggest mistakes we make when developing an MVP?

The biggest mistakes will be the number of features built (or scope creep), failed to listen to or analyze user feedback properly, and forgetting to plan for iterative cycles after the first MVP launch.

4. How do we know if our MVP is "good enough"?

Your MVP is "good enough" in the sense that it solves the core problem for the target user reliably at a point where it is stable enough to give a good first experience of your product. Think of your MVP as the beginning of a learning cycle and not a finished piece.

Conclusion

Using POC & MVP Services is the best way to strategically approach product development and take your innovative ideas to market. By first verifying the POC technical feasibility and secondly validating market demand with a lean MVP and customer approach, you can massively reduce risk and create products which people want! The ability to pivot through data and be committed to understanding your users is the ultimate iterative process for building products that have impact, longevity and are sustainable to build through MVP Development.