MVPs and market fit

An MVP (minimum viable product) can be described as “The smallest thing that you can build that delivers customer value” (Interaction Design Foundation).

Creating an MVP allows you to test your basic product with real users and then refine based on their feedback. It is a way to get to product-market fit, and answer the pressing question your potential investors are asking: “Does your product fulfil a real market need?”

Key to a successful product is product-market fit. To reach the greatest possible audience you want to make your product available to as many users as possible. If your product does not include people with a disability, you are already excluding 15% of users from the beginning. Without inclusion, there is no perfect market fit.

Once you have tested your idea with real users, it will pave the way to funding as you can prove your product market-fit to investors. This is a particularly difficult step for small companies, as investors are rather cautious in the Swiss financial scape and prefer to invest in the expansion of proven products – making it particularly hard for new players to see eye to eye with established companies.

Creating an MVP – together

Nothing was established over 20 years ago and is thus well-networked and familiar with the funding landscape in Switzerland. Just what you need to have up your sleeve when knocking on investors doors. With solid experience in taking product ideas to market, our competences cover every step from the initial strategy brainstorming to tailoring the product to the market.

The process of creating an MVP is quite straight-forward: define a business hypothesis, identify the main MVP features, know your target audience, and leverage partners’ networks to take it to market. Let’s get into the details of what this means.

• Define a business hypothesis: Together, we’ll define your business strategy and how you will be able to create the most value for both your customers and your organisation. We want every product to be simple, human, and inclusive. With our guidance, you stay clear of fancy, but inaccessible features and instead, focus your financial resources on the essential parts of your MVP.

• Know your target audience: Your product can only be successful if it is actually being used. We will conduct user research and testing for your initial idea, with a first functional prototype. Research will allow to identify issues in visual and service design quickly and to integrate adjustments to cater to your users’ needs best. Further user tests will take place with each iteration of your prototype on its way to MVP.

• Identify the main MVP features: With our expertise in visual design, development, interaction design, usability, and inclusivity, we pull ashore a product that unites both form and function. For example, we make sure that your product is free of colour-sensitive information and that functional inclusion is met for all users (think keyboard-navigation or screen-readers). All features will be tested as they emerge.

• Implementation: The best code quality right from the start saves you costs later, with a product that is easier to maintain. With high-quality, accessible code from the beginning, maintenance efforts decrease quickly, as adding new features to your product means copy&pasting existing elements and quicker testing rounds. Our developers are skilled in inclusive code as part of our daily practice. During the process, we get your knowledge up to speed so that you can work independently form us. We’ll aid with regular support for new features and with more complex questions about inclusion.

• Take to market: By now, the MVP has undergone numerous testing rounds and is ready for launch. We help you figure out timing your product launch, on which channels to distribute your product and to develop your MVP through our network of stakeholders. Once the product is launched, we advise on important product decisions for optimal business growth beyond profit, benefitting all users.

Taking care of accessibility from the very start, the final product will offer a high level of inclusion, with a greater market reach and unseen innovation.