Challenges Faced When Developing an MWP
Developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for your startup is a great way to validate your idea before investing in the long-term development of your company. Do you know which common challenges are commonly faced by startups when developing an MVP? Find out more below!
Ideation
Ideation is the phase when you come up with concepts for your app idea. To get the ball rolling, there are a couple of things to consider before starting ideation. You need to really know your audience as well as your goal for this app in order for it to succeed. Refinement and exploration is what begins ideation, so explore broadly and refine until you find the perfect solution. Identify pain points. Figure out what you can do to make someone’s life more convenient, easier, simpler or more fun. This is your first step.
Market viability
Development of an MWP can not be undertaken without first mapping out the size and scope of your market. This can seem like a daunting task.
A plethora of factors needs to be taken into consideration:
- How popular are MWP's in your local area?
- Who are your competitors?
- What is the projected growth rate for adoption over the next 5 years or so?
Based on this information, you'll need to make an educated guess about what kind of return you can feasibly expect. You'll also want to take cost into consideration as well as any regulatory issues that may arise from developing a similar product or conducting any portion of the development outside of your country.
There are many factors that need to be analyzed when you develop an MWP. For instance, it is important to find out what different industries your product is applicable for and whether there will be a market for it. Firstly, you would have to research the demand for your product and then estimate the forecasted consumption with enough time to invest into current or future supply chains. You should also follow up on legislation, technologies, cost and risks before finalizing your MWP.
Product roadmap & agility
In the case that no product roadmap is created, a typical development cycle can be allowed to run unabated without any knowledge of long-term success or failure. This impactful decision results in a slower way to market, and ultimately failures in the production process. The roadmaps should consist of both short-term and long-term goals: targets to shoot for with pre-determined key milestones. A product roadmap is a clear plan for short and long-term product releases. It sets goals to aim for and milestones the product will need to reach in the future. This roadmap should detail what new features the company plans to introduce, and when they will be released. Consultants can map out unique roadmaps depending on your needs and how quickly you want to release your products.
Builders also use a product roadmap to keep employees informed on what is happening with the business, how-to improve their own products, and figure out where they should focus their marketing efforts next.
Agility As we're developing an MWP program to meet our customers' needs, it's necessary to review the current customer landscape so we can determine the specific customer profile. Once this has been done, we'll review our other customer interactions to see how they were successful and why they weren't. We'll also take the opportunity to figure out what products are needed by new customers so that when we develop a roadmap, it will focus on customer-specified needs.
Time-to-market
A crucial factor when developing an MWP is time-to-market, as this is what can determine the success of the product. Designing and assembling an MWP is a complex process requiring time to research, design and develop parts. Time-to-market will be influenced by the decision to outsource parts or in-house manufacture, and even choosing a contract manufacturer can take time.
Here are common issues that can affect time to market:
- Unforeseen circumstances
- Hiring delays
- Compliance issues
- Change in Requirements during development
Product software is typically developed by an enterprise business or a service provider to serve clients' needs and solve their problems, but this introduces challenges for release-time: how long does it take to get new functions implemented? How much does it cost?
Make or Buy? Inhouse-talent or Outsource?
When preparing to develop an MWP, many corprations ask themselves if they should build all of the exsisting programs or outsource their designs. If a know-it-all and her co-workers are drafting a programme, it doesn't take much for them to knock it up in a short amount of time. The question, on the other hand, is more difficult when partnering with external freelancers. Whether you decide to outsource design work or hire your own internal designers (or even both) it's important to maintain direct communication.
Many of the challenges encountered when developing an MWP are general concerns that need to be addressed from day one. There isn't a way to go about this without proper funding, but typically the quantity of funds has a lot to do with how you set up your development strategy. In-house talent is usually more costly to get but it has a potential for higher quality and quicker delivery times. Outsourcing resources can reduce costs and even might make sense if it helps with R&D as well as furthering away reliance on our own human skillsets.
Moreover, if we look at where any technology company is right now, things like AI, IoT, or new tech sectors should be incorporated unless they are niche markets. Therefore it's difficult not to When you build a roadmap, the first thing that needs to be done is define what you want to accomplish. You typically will have a set of deliverables, such as: new features, bug fixes, premium content, and consultants with the right skills or knowledge.
When determining whether to make or buy something in your talent pool or outside, it all depends on how long you plan on keeping that talent, what alternative use they might find for their time if they were not utilized by your team (e.g., could another part of the organization have an opportunity for them), does this skill fit where we're going strategically? If all these items balance out and it makes sense to outsource the work, let us know and a member of Xpeer will help you to find the best match.
