MVP: How To Make A Profitable App With Limited Budget

You don't have to pack your future app with loads of features and make it skyrocket to fame. In fact, it can be so heavy with features it doesn't really need that it won't be able to fly high. Meanwhile building a heavy machine takes time that you cannot afford. Most startups and other mobile businesses don't have a year to build the product. There are two, maybe three months to accomplish the development and finally launch it.

As for budget, there may be a situation when your budget is fixed before the estimations, and you are not sure whether it's actually possible to fit in. But you, as the person responsible for the project, have to find the way. Whether it's your own investment or the money of stakeholders, it may simply be insufficient to implement the app idea as it is, but the point is, you don't have to. You don't have to look for a questionable company that promises to do everything for a cheap price, and run the risks of haste and bad quality. There is a possible lifebelt by limited budget, and it's called MVP – minimum viable product.

What Is MVP?

MVP is more than just a flexible product with all secondary features placed on the shelf until better time. It's a concept or an approach, if you wish. MVP is when your app is useful enough to be launched, compete with rivals on the market, and create a user base. It has to solve a real existing need.

How Do You Determine MVP?

MVP is right at the crossroads of your users' needs and your own business goals. That's subjective, and depends on how well you know your market, and how much resource you have. You should also stick to the following points:

• The main rule: MVP must never be overminimalist or unfinished, it must be focused;
• However, the term 'finished' is unclear as well. Let's put put this way: your budget has to suffice for creating an essential product, worth rivaling similar ones. Your budget will help you understand where you should stop;
• You have to come up with a 'killer feature' that will not only distinguish your app among others, but as well put it above them all. What's interesting, letting the user accomplish the same task with fewer taps and screens sometimes counts;
• No matter if your killer feature is technically complicated. Maybe your rivals previously abandoned the idea because of technical difficulties. If your team is capable of doing it, go for it;
• MVP is viable today and irrelevant tomorrow. Be always prepared for making decisions and altering the direction of your product.

What Do You Get With MVP?

• You launch your product within the shortest period of time. Anything that takes less time than MVP may be simply unfinished;
• You iterate faster, receive new versions of your app more often. You test and improve, and your users remain satisfied with your software product;
• The flip side of the coin is, it takes more time, and you must closely work with your development team. However, the closer you work together, the more trust appears, and you are able to loosen control, allow them to contribute valuable ideas. Thus you also focus on your primary business tasks;
• You track validated needs and feedback of your users more efficiently with least effort. It's real people who use your app and tell you what they want to see there;
• MVP solves a peculiar problem of a niche audience. Targeting a precise niche means higher engagement, effective marketing and networking among interested people; all this in the end is turned into profits;
• If you fail at first, it doesn't mean you fail permanently. The cost of failure is minimal here – and you are able to rebuild the product, adjust it for another audience. There were cases when a product simply changed its philosophy according to the niche it was popular with – and firmly trod there to get more followers.

More Advice For Software Owners

• 90% of startups fail – stop worrying, pay more attention to your users. We believe that the lion's share of failures were caused by failing to improve the app according to changes in user needs. Even products that had millions of users, did fail to stagnation (MySpace);
• If you are that determined to succeed, start building awareness right now, start creating social pages and spreading the word of the upcoming product, possibly with press releases or tech blogs;
• Success on the modern mobile market is always trial and error. Don't hurry to get thousands of users in no time – spread the app among early adopters. But surely be prepared to scale the backend of your product effortlessly.

None of the famous products we know had that much power from the beginning. None had the technologies we had now. Each had to adjust and iterate to succeed. Facebook has been pushing updates since its creation in 2004 – and now the mobile client apps are updated each month at least. Instagram had no built-in photo editing tools or videos. The app was quite poor at the beginning, not to mention that Android users had to wait awhile. Google's search engine was a simple one, without the powers it has now – relevant suggestions, maps, translations, weather forecasts, etc.

Building a successful MVP means building for users, not for stakeholders, and building a product that's the best at just one task rather than lagging at many tasks. The multitool principle doesn't work here, especially at the early stages. Just like sculptors take a great big piece of stone and 'remove' everything unnecessary to make their works of art, you gather all your thoughts together and preserve only vital ideas that can make a consistent product to start with.

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