The term “minimum viable product” (MVP) is one that I came across many times when I started my newb app developer journey.
The idea is that your first version of the app may not have all the features you want it to, but has enough to be an okay product.
But is it the right approach?
One of the advantages of this strategy is that if the app does not do well, you haven’t wasted a whole lot of more time developing an app no one wants or will tell all their friends about.
It will also allow you to get your app out there before a competing app does, you can build a base of users to get more feedback/ideas from, and if there is interest, continue to develop the features and improve the design/functionality.
But what if the lack of features or the slapped together design ends up hurting you in the long run?
As I have previously mentioned before you even think about starting to make your app, you need to get honest feedback on your app idea and research what else might be out there like it. Once you know you have a good idea you can then create your app, test it, test it, test it. And of course you need to constantly prepare for promoting the app.
Work to generate buzz as you near launch day, make lists of people to contact, get your marketing materials ready. If you want to be successful, this is what you have to do to make a big splash on launch day. If you don’t do that, you will never get up the top 10 lists, and it will be unlikely you are going to be an “app store success”.
But if the app doesn’t look good, or doesn’t work exactly the way it should, or is missing out on key features…all that work might be for nothing.
People are pretty frugal with their app store dollars, and any negative feedback in reviews you can get, or on the app store, might be enough to sway people to not getting your app.
I just got a feedback email from someone saying he liked the app, but couldn’t recommend it to his colleagues/students because the iPad version doesn’t rotate for horizontal orientation. Something many apps don’t do…but this small feature was a “deal-breaker” and might have cost me a few hundred downloads.
There is also the risk that people will download your app, try it out, and then delete it off their device. So when you release version 2.0 with all the great features…they won’t get the update because they no longer have the app installed. It’s been made even worse now with the automatic updates from iOS 7 so now they may not even be aware you’ve made changes if they haven’t used the app in a while, other than the small dot on the icon which they may not notice.
One of the best ways to see how many users are still using your app (or have the app on their devices at least) is via your update numbers. Use iTunes Connect or App Annie to get your total downloads to date, then get the number of updates from the latest update. (Happy to report most of my paid apps have a high 90s update rate! We’ll see how V2.0 goes…)
So if you go the minimum viable product route….make sure it works, has enough features to make it worth downloading, and make sure it looks good.
I have already posted about the differences between the “MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT” Version 1.0 of my apps and what I would consider the “MOST VALUABLE PLAYER” Version 2.0 that I launched June 3rd.
But to recap, V1.0 had an ugly, clunky design but a lot of good features. V2.0 has a cleaner design, fits better, and has a whole pile of features V1.0 should have had.
I will post another update in a short time to see how my push for the Version 2.0 launch goes.
Noel
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