13 Mistakes to Avoid When Building an MVP

Sometimes, the reality is harsh. Every day businesses bring their innovative apps to the market, but only a handful of them get success in the market. Many apps don’t even get released. Have you wondered why? Because some businesses fully utilize the concept of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and achieve successful results, whereas others don’t and face failure.

Launching a new product always comes with a risk. However, MVP minimizes that risk. MVP validates your idea and saves you money, time, effort, and resources. It is a prototype of a final product with core features released into the market to avoid failure, observe how it performs, and satisfy the early users.

If you are a business owner looking to develop a product, try developing an MVP first. However, there are some mistakes to avoid when building an MVP. So, let’s look at those blunders one by one.

13 mistakes to avoid when building an MVP

Lack of research

Most business owners think their product will be successful, and unfortunately, with no market research. If so, then many questions arise, like how do you plan to solve user pain points? Which market segment are you targeting? Who is your target audience? First, you need to find answers to these questions.

Market research is crucial to validate your ideas whether it meets the users’ needs, solve their problems, etc. In this stage, you do a competitive analysis and look for a similar product. If there exists one, then how unique is your idea? Does it solve users’ pain points? Will they buy it?

You know you have a great idea. But, are you sure the users will accept it? So first, validate your ideas by doing market research.

Wrong development partner

There are an endless number of companies in the market. They have their own way of developing a product. However, because of a lack of budget, especially startups go for a development partner with less experience and skills, providing services cheaper comparably. As a result, they get poor development services and sometimes, a low-quality product full of bugs.

But, it really gets tough when you don’t have technical knowledge. As a result, you will have difficulty knowing what to expect from a development partner, how to communicate with them, etc.

We aren’t saying anything bad about a company, but you need to be sure that you have chosen the right one that fits your requirements and needs for your MVP development. Otherwise, you will be stuck with a firm that provides poor development services.

So, you need to pick the right development partner, like Truemark Technology, who will help you develop an MVP successfully that resonates with your brand.

Too many features

MVP means having the core features to satisfy your early users. However, sometimes business owners add too many features in the initial version. They don’t understand that it carries the risk of failing. And when that happens, months of effort and resources are wasted for nothing.

The business owners want to add everything in their MVP, like their final product. However, such a mentality hits them hard when the users don’t accept it. What really intrigues them to do this is their competitors. They have so many features, so why don’t I do it too? Such thinking ends up backfiring them.

So, instead of chasing after the perfect product with lots of features, focus on the product with optimal and right features.

Solving the wrong problems

Overwhelmed by their new idea, some business owners think their product will be a success without any proof or validation. They skip market research and don’t care to study their competitors and audience. They just go with the flow and don’t realize their mistake and that they might be going for the wrong solution.

Without any market research, it is impossible to know if your product is the ideal solution to the users’ pain points. The audience you are targeting is not the right one.

So, it is crucial to identify your target audience and know their needs and problems, first. Then only proceed with the development process.

Focusing on the unnecessary features

As stated earlier, you might have listed down too many features for your product. However, not every feature goes into the MVP. Some are important while others aren’t. So, it is crucial to prioritize the feature and implement them accordingly.

Even if you want to add every feature, you can do it in the later versions once you get positive responses from the users.

So, avoid unnecessary or less important features and focus on core ones.

Looking for instant success

Most business owners want success overnight. As a result, they make more mistakes in the MVP development process. First, they skip the market and competitor analysis. Second, they don’t validate their ideas. Third, they don’t interview or engage with their target audience. Fourth, they add as many features as they want. And the list goes on.

Business owners think that launching the product faster in the market gives them instant success. To some extent, it may give competitive gain, but what if a similar product is already existing in the market? It ruins everything, right?

So, it is crucial to focus on important things rather than wanting immediate results. It takes time, so be patient until then.

Large audience

Another common mistake most business owners make is that they target a large audience. They are confident that it will solve everyone’s problems. But the reality is that not everyone faces the same problems. And as a result, when they launch the product, the expectations shatter.

So it is crucial to narrow down your target audience. Later, you can focus on expanding your reach.

Hasty development process

Everybody wants to speed up their launch to market. They want their product to release faster than anyone. However, in doing so, some business owners set unrealistic deadlines. As a result, this pressurizes the development team and increases the risk of making more mistakes.

Some errors go unnoticed, which creates a bigger problem in the future. The development team sometimes skips the testing process because of this, the product owners have to allocate extra time and money to fix the issues. So, it is necessary to avoid making any hasty decisions and let the development team do their work.

Absence of security and privacy

No matter what features you include in your MVP, never ignore security and privacy factors. Everyone wants their information to be safe. And as a product owner, it is your responsibility to ensure it.

You don’t want your users to feel insecure while using your product and to bring any harm to them. Otherwise, no one will ever buy your product. So, it is necessary to ensure that you have implemented the best technologies to make your MVP secure.

Ignoring scalability

It is crucial to think about the scalability of your product. Before developing your MVP, you need to think about scaling it in the future. You don’t want your product to be limited. However, only a few business owners think about it priorly.

What if your product needs an update or your user’s base skyrockets or you need to add extra features? You can’t be developing a new product for new functionality or a problem. It isn’t practically feasible since you don’t have a limitless budget.

So, it is crucial to put scalability in mind. Use technologies that are flexible enough to implement the changing requirements in the future.

Ignoring testing

The MVP is the prototype of your final product. It helps you know how feasible your product is and how it performs. It is your key to success, and you don’t want everything to crumble right before it even starts. So, it is necessary to ensure your MVP works perfectly fine according to your expectations. So, testing is crucial.

Testing ensures your product is error-free and fully functional. You want your MVP to be user-friendly. And testing makes it possible. So, never ignore its importance.

Lacking marketing

If no one knows about your product, then no one will use it. To let people know it exists, you need to focus on marketing strategies. But some business owners ignore it.

Your months of hard work, resources, and money are riding on your product. If people are unaware of its existence, then everything you have done so far is wasted. You need to know how to promote it, what techniques to use, which digital channels to rely on, etc. Without marketing, you cannot hope to achieve success.

Marketing helps you build your brand and helps people educate you about your business and its products and services. It helps you gain an edge over your competitors. It is very important in today’s digital world.

Excluding user feedback

Forgetting user feedback is another major problem for business owners. They totally ignore the primary purpose of an MVP, which is to gather user feedback.

It is crucial to listen to what the users are saying about your product. It gives insights into how your product is performing, what you are lacking, what needs to be improved, and so on.

User feedback helps to visualize your success. If taken seriously, you can develop a product that users actually want. These feedbacks are the roadmap to your success, so never ignore them.

Read more: How to Build an MVP Effectively and Successfully?

In Conclusion

Every leading corporate giant like Facebook, Amazon, Alibaba, Uber, Airbnb, etc., was once an MVP. They started small, and now they are beyond anyone’s reach. It is challenging, but not impossible to surpass them. And you could be the one to achieve it. So before going for the big, start with MVP. It helps you visualize your success and brings out the potential of your product.

Always remember that you will face challenges. But, never settle down. Keep moving forward and watch out for these mistakes to avoid when building an MVP.

If you are planning to develop a product, validate your idea by building an MVP. Collect valuable feedback from your users. Most importantly, choose a reliable development partner like Truemark Technology. With years of experience in software development, we will help you build a successful MVP that caters to your business needs and requirements. For any development services, please feel free to contact us. We provide free consultation services to answer your questions and clear your confusion.