Whatever your business profile, launching a product idea is always an adventure full of obstacles, but the satisfaction of success is well worth the effort. Unfortunately in some cases, without you knowing why, your users ignore your product. The key to avoid this situation: the MVP

Here is a recurring problem that you should absolutely avoid: launch a product that seems perfectly successful to you. Nothing will tell you at this point whether users will share your point of view. This is why waiting for your product to be complete to distribute it is a mistake.

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So what solution? Launch a half-finished product? Exactly!

And the evidence of success is by no means small: Dropbox, Instagram, Instagram, Facebook, Airbnb, Spotify, Groupon?

The key to the success of these web giants is called the MVP: the Minimum Viable Product.

The MVP, or minimum viable product, is the simplest version of your product. It must be both powerful enough to be distributed to users of the core? Target heart, and at the same time simple to be developed quickly at a lower cost.

Eric Ries, author of The Lean Start Up, the bible of business agility, even goes so far as to add that the MVP must be distributed to end users who are ready to pay for this “early” version of the product. In all cases, paid or not, this version of the product must be usable and solve a problem as in the example shown below.

A skateboard (1) is not the best way to get around, but in the absence of a better solution (2, 3, 4 and 5) it solves the user's problem. This is not the case with the wheel alone.

In the case of a mobile application, a good way is to start with a free application on the stores, and then develop your paid features. At the beginning, don't get carried away: stick to the feature that first answers your users' problem, the one you really want to help them solve. So, in 2009, Uber “UberCab” started with an ultra-simple mobile interface. The founders transported their friends after a request from them via the interface and notified by email. However, remember, no bugs are allowed: you are delivering a simple but reliable product.

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But what is the point of this MVP?

The main risk when developing a product is developing the wrong product. Impossible, you say? Not much, it has already happened to Andrew Mason for example, the creator of Groupon, for example, who before being successful created “The Point” a collaborative website, which has since been forgotten.

The objective of the MVP is to find out if your product addresses a problem encountered by users and to get answers to the following two questions. Does this problem really exist? Is the solution that your MVP offers the most effective?

The answers of users to these two questions provide invaluable information for the rest of your project. Each feedback serves you to improve your product and to bring it little by little closer to the ideal product according to your users.

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What are the benefits of collecting feedback with the MVP?

“My MVP is not at all successful, so I will only get negative feedback! “

Of course, except that the objective is not to get 10/10 from users, but to learn from them through their feedback. Some users will raise secondary problems that you had already thought about and that you did not develop due to lack of time and resources. But others will point to problems you didn't even consider!

Feedback processed early has a huge positive impact: it avoids wasting time and money by readjusting the product and its functionalities to meet user expectations. To take a very concrete example: when you invite a friend to your house and he tells you that he is hungry, you are not going directly into the development of a set up. You start by asking him what he would like to eat. Producing a set-up piece headlong is a huge waste of time and money.

In the case of an application, the user does not necessarily know what he wants (unlike your friend who will have an idea of what he would like to eat). On the other hand, with an MVP in their hands, your user will be able to tell you what they don't want or what they think they want. The MVP is therefore an effective way to collect this feedback that is essential for the continuation of your project.

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What if my feedback tells me that I really am not going in the right direction?

Pivot! A pivot is a modification of all or part of one's business, to stick as closely as possible to user expectations. Don't get stuck in the original idea and don't be afraid to create a product that's different from the one you envisioned as long as it meets the needs of users. A very eloquent example of a successful pivot is Critéo, the specialist in advertising retargeting. Critéo is the result of 3 pivots and now has a turnover of 745 million euros. The initial idea? The video recommendation. The next idea? The recommendation of products intended for e-commerce. Finally, Critéo found its market in advertising retargeting.

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What MVPs, what successes?

In fact, a lot of web giants started small. Andrew Mason, after the failure of The Point, started a blog where a good plan was manually posted daily. When someone registered the site generated a PDF with a discount coupon. One thing led to another, this WordPress site became Groupon.

The Spotify MVP was a landing page that focused on the most important feature at the beginning: music streaming.

One last example: the founders of Airbnb started by taking photos of their own apartments and renting them on the internet.

What these MVPs have in common is that they have led to the successes you know. So don't get started right away with your set up, offer a cream puff first and adjust your proposal based on feedback!

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UPDATE: Find out why the Minimum Lovable Product is the new Minimum Viable Product!

• Why is MLP (Minimum Lovable Product) the new MVP (Minimum Valuable Product)?
• How do you design a Minimum Lovable Product?