You know what? This list of Top 10 Examples of Minimum Viable Products might spike the process of converting your business idea into reality. So DO check this out to make your idea happen!
Let’s start by addressing the major pain point of the startup industry. It is the launch of the final product without analyzing the demands of the market. You agree with me, right? There are so many startups that have followed this path and ended up making huge losses.
So the prime intent here is to find out a solution to this and make you see how this is a beneficial approach for you.
So yes, the solution that I am talking about is MVP or Minimum Viable Product. It is evident, I know. But still calls for a formal introduction.
To give you a brief on MVP, It’s the process in which, you finalize the core features of your business idea and build a product around it. Then you simply launch it in the market and test the idea with early adopters. Sounds smooth right? Wait, the loop isn’t over.
With the feedback from these early adopters, you keep iterating the product to achieve a product-market fit. See, the basic idea behind this is to reduce the wastage of limited resources like time and money which is crucial for any early-stage startup. Don’t you agree?
So let’s dive into the core topic without any further adieu. This will surely help you understand and apply the concept of MVP in our business approach and see yourselves grow exponentially!
We will just browse through the definition here because the core topic involves MVP examples. However, to know this by the grittiest details, do read our blog that is solely dedicated to the topic of a minimum viable product.
Now getting back to the topic, an MVP is the initial format of a product, built with the core features. It is released in the market to check the requirement of that product and the market feedback as well. See how smart a move this is?
Entrepreneurs follow the MVP approach to evaluate how the market/consumers feel about that particular idea. Their feedback helps understand if the idea has any potential at all. If not, then pivot. Simple!
Don’t you see how this is beneficial for your startup? Using the MVP approach helps you validate an idea using the least amount of resources. You can simply avoid developing a full product that the market doesn’t need.
This also eliminates the prospect of building a product with undesirable features which you would have to remove eventually after the market feedback. So why not do it from the beginning and save your time and money?
See, an MVP,
accelerates the product’s time to market,
helps launch a business idea into the market in the easiest way possible,
and also validates the idea via market feedback.
I bet you like the prospect of it already!
The effect of the Minimum Viable Product in the startup ecosystem
The MVP approach is a segment of the Lean Startup approach. Okay, so you don’t know about the Lean Startup method? Well, it’s nothing but the launch of a product based on thorough experimentation.
Eric Ries, an American entrepreneur, and author popularized the concept of MVP which works on a build-measure-learn loop. The overall idea of this method of business is to learn about the target market by building a product core features of an idea and reading the market feedback.
The build-measure-learn loop follows these given steps:
Build a product around the core features of your idea.
Analyze the changes that need to be done, based on the feedback of the early adopters.
Learn from this analysis and iterate the product accordingly.
Sounds like the perfect plan, right? DOn’t miss out the Examples of Minimum Viable Products right here!
10 Examples of Minimum Viable Products that flourished into huge brands
Allow me to walk you through the top 10 Examples of Minimum Viable Products. Here we go:
1. Dropbox
So once upon a time, Drew Houston, and Arash Ferdowsi thought of building a cloud-based file-syncing tool. However, they understood that building the entire infrastructure would cost them their time and money. So what was the other option?
Yes! MVP it is!
Most startups would have built an app or invested in the entire development of that idea. However, Houston and Ferdowsi applied the smarter approach.
Their MVP was just a simple demonstration video that showcased the utility of Dropbox. That’s all. There was nothing more to it. Take a look:
And guess what? The video was a huge success. It resulted in around 70,000 signups from people who thought it was a glorified idea. And that’s how they knew, Dropbox would be a success even before they started building the project.
Nick Swinmurn had the idea to start selling shoes online. But instead of developing a fully-functioning e-commerce stop, ordering inventory, or registering with delivery partners, he took the MVP approach.
So, Swinmurn enrolled in Shoesite.com and started his business just like that.
He just took some pictures of the shoes that he thought of selling and put them up on the site. If anyone would place the order, he would buy it from the retail shop and send the shoes to the respective customer. How smart is that?
This offered him a very low-risk method of validating his idea without draining his resources. Shoesite.com was later developed into Zappos and the rest is history.
Earlier, in the 1990s, discount vouchers and coupons used to be a thing and Groupon thought of taking a plunge in that sea of opportunities.
So all they did was, make a website and email the ones who subscribed there for coupons. They would just provide the coupons in a pdf format and get done with the process.
Did you see the trick here? They built a list of early adopters and included them in the MVP game.
With time, Groupon repurposed these leads for revenue generation and used them to gradually build the entire voucher system.
The podcasting company Odeo had gotten into a direct corporate battle with Apple in 2011, with the launch og iTunes. Eventually, they started hackathons to brainstorm new ideas.
One of these brainstorming sessions resulted in the proposition of a cool messaging tool or service, by the name – “Twttr”
Initially, Twitter was for the employees of Odeo only. But with time, the use and application of Twittr among the employees became huge. Odeo soon pivoted to Twitter and it is what is right now.
See how they saved their business by pivoting and acting on idea validation by their own employees.
Jeff Bezos, who used to be an investment banker, realized the power of the internet and put it to best use. So initially he started selling books online.
Instead of investing in some eCommerce site, he simply built his own website to sell books at low prices online. It was just a simple attempt to test the idea of selling books and perhaps other similar products online. And oh how it was validated!
Soon the sales took off, and there was no looking back!
Frustrated by the high price of cab service, Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp came up with an affordable alternative.
They launched an MVP version of the ‘UberCab’ app which then worked only on iPhones. Also, the location was limited to San Francisco. Yes, you heard that right! They were waiting for the proper validation of their idea.
And it did work. Their idea of cab-sharing was readily accepted in the market.
With their MVP app, they tested the market risks, and that too at a very low cost! Soon they became one of the most highly valued global companies with business all around the globe.
In 2003, Mark Zuckerberg and his friend Eduardo Saverin thought of building something that would enable people to connect with friends and family easily.
So in 2004, they launched ‘TheFacebook’ and made it available only to the fellow students of Harvard University. This offered a form of exclusivity which wasn’t available in the market.
This MVP method let Zuckerberg dodge the pitfalls of spending too much on developing any wholly new concept. TheFacebook eventually expanded worldwide and Zuckerberg’s idea of “connecting” people, became a huge success.
Rob Kalin conceived the idea for Etsy when he was in need to sell off his wooden-cased computers. Yes, that was it! Well, people were complaining about the high-rated fees of eBay anyway, so that’s when Etsy came to life.
So what Kalin did is, he build a simple MVP website for people to enroll and sell self-crafted products. How sweet! I know.
And guess what? Almost in a single night, a huge flock of sellers enrolled and began selling, notwithstanding the simple and very unfinished design of the website. The idea was everything to them!
This MVP approach helped Kalin validate his idea instantly and that too without draining his resources.
Now all he did was, use this very revenue and build the full product. That was it.
Chesky and Gebbia were actually broke in 2008 were struggling to rent out their San Francisco apartment. The story begins from here!
So they wanted to test the idea of putting up their house for rent. That was all.
So instead of diving into a full-fledged business regime, all they did was create an MVP. They built a trivial website showcasing pictures of their very own apartment!
And the result was satisfactory enough to build a business around this concept. And the rest is history.
See how MVP led them to test their idea at the most basic price range? That’s the core idea of MVP anyway.
Once upon a time, the music industry was going through the hassle of piracy. In addition to that, legislation of any kind was simply not working.
So, the founders, Martin Lorentzon and Daniel Ek came up with the idea of free music streaming service.
In order to test their idea and its validity in the market, they came up with an MVP. so they built a desktop app offering just one core feature and that is music streaming. With the market feedback and validation, they kept iterating the product.
Spotify’s MVP approach was originally executed on a restricted beta to examine the market and save resources as much as possible. This method validated Spotify’s idea at the barest minimum.
And voila! The rest is history.
Overview
So what did you imbibe from the blog here? I hope you have realized the importance of MVP for your startup via these Examples of Minimum Viable Products of huge brands. And if not, do comment below. Let’s have a fruitful conversation over this. What do you think?
See, the story of MVP dates back to the recent past and the examples for it are all here.
A step-by-step approach is the best way to start anything from scratch, don’t you think?
Lastly, you need to understand that a minimum viable product doesn’t mean a cheaper version of your product. No. Not at all. It is just about idea validation before you put in all your resources.
Wait, are you an entrepreneur yourself? Then do reach out to us at TheCodeWork, if you happen to be in the ideation stage. Let us help you out.
Why don’t you book a free consultation call it today?
TheCodeWork Team
TheCodeWork Team
Our Content Team at TheCodeWork believes in quality content. We write everything related to startups and products at large. We publish our blog every alternate Wednesday. Subscribe to our newsletter to get notified of our awesome content.
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