What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP): A Founder’s Guide to Launching with Confidence in Australia
By Dmitry Loukine, CGO & Founder of SwivelTech
Before we discuss what is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), we should understand that every successful startup begins with a problem - a real, persistent issue that someone has encountered so often that they finally decide to solve it themselves. More often than not, the best startup ideas come from founders who have firsthand experience in their industry and deeply understand the challenges their customers face.
At SwivelTech’s MVP Factory, we specialise in turning these industry-driven insights into scalable, AI-powered products for startups to scale ups and corporate innovation teams. But before you take the leap and start building your MVP, now let’s get to know what a Minimum Viable Product really is.
Table of Content
What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?
At its core, a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the most basic version of your product that still solves a core problem for your early adopters and demonstrates your core functionality. It's about launching lean, focusing on the minimum features needed to validate your business idea and attract initial users.
Think of it as the first, essential stepping stone on your product development journey. It's not about creating a perfect, fully-featured product right away. Instead, the MVP embraces iterative development. It’s about getting a functional product – even in its simplest form – into the hands of real users to gather valuable customer feedback.
What’s The Importance of a Minimum Viable Product?
Now that we've defined what an MVP is, the crucial question for any Australian innovator or a start-up becomes: Why is adopting this approach so important? Why not just build the full product you envision from the start?
The truth is, the importance of a Minimum Viable Product lies in mitigating risk and maximising learning – essential factors for startup success, especially in the competitive Australian landscape. Here’s a breakdown of the key benefits:
Reduced Risk and Cost-Effective Development: Building a full-fledged product without market validation is like navigating uncharted waters in the dark. It’s a gamble. An MVP allows you to test your core assumptions with minimal investment. By focusing on minimum features and core functionality, you avoid spending significant resources on features that users may not actually want or need. This cost-effective development approach is particularly vital for startups operating with limited budgets.
Faster Time to Market and Accelerated Learning: An MVP allows you to get your initial release out to market much faster than a fully-featured product. This speed isn't just about being first; it’s about accelerating your learning. By getting your early version into the hands of early adopters, you can quickly gather real-world customer feedback.
Validate Product-Market Fit and The Business Model: Perhaps the most critical importance of an MVP is its ability to validate your business model and achieve product-market fit. Does your solution actually resonate with your target audience? Does it solve a real problem in a way that they are willing to adopt? An MVP provides concrete data, not just assumptions, which is crucial for attracting future investments.
Iterative Development and User-Centric Design: The MVP is just the starting point for iterative development. The customer feedback loop you establish with your MVP directly informs the next stages of development. This user-centric design approach ensures that you are building a product that truly meets user needs and desires, not just your own assumptions. You are building with your users, not just for them.
In short, the Minimum Viable Product is not about building the bare minimum; it’s about building the smartest minimum. It's about strategic resource allocation, rapid learning, and de-risking your innovation journey.
Types of MVP
To effectively validate your innovative idea, you don't always need to build a fully functional software application right away. In fact, depending on your stage and the type of validation you seek, different types of MVPs can be more appropriate. Here are some common MVP approaches:
No-Product MVPs
Sometimes, the most "minimum" viable product is actually no product at all! No-Product MVPs, often called Smoke Tests, are designed to test if there's genuine interest in your value proposition even before you build anything tangible. These MVPs are about gauging demand and validating your core assumptions with minimal effort.
Prototype MVPs
A Prototype MVP moves a step closer to a tangible product. It combines elements of both a prototype (a rough, early-stage model) and an MVP (a functional product used for market validation), however a prototype alone is not necessarily an MVP. The key difference between a prototype and an MVP is that a prototype helps visualise and refines the concept, whereas, an MVP is a working product that tests market demand.
However, a Prototype MVP is still an MVP which is a preliminary model or early version of your product, designed to demonstrate the core functionality and user experience, and it may not be fully functional or scalable.
Single-Feature MVPs
A Single-Feature MVP, also known as a Functional MVP, prioritises building one core feature of your product exceptionally well addressing the most critical problem. This approach delivers quick, but limited, value to early adopters by focusing on solving one key problem effectively. They are excellent for attracting initial users who can experience immediate benefit from that focused feature.
Piecemeal MVPs
Piecemeal MVPs employ a resourceful strategy, leveraging existing tools and readily available platforms to construct your core value proposition, instead of building everything from the ground up. They are particularly effective for validating complex, service-oriented ideas or platforms where developing the entire technology infrastructure upfront is impractical or too expensive.
Software-Based MVPs
Software-Based MVPs represent functional software applications, built with minimum features and core functionality. These MVPs are developed to be directly used by early adopters, providing a tangible experience of your solution and enabling direct validation in a live software environment.
Steps to Build an MVP
When building an MVP step-by-step or even finding an MVP development partner, there are key questions you should ask yourself to ensure you’re ready for the journey ahead. Here’s what every founder should know when building an MVP.
1. Do You Truly Understand the Problem?
The most successful products don’t just introduce a new technology—they solve a real problem for a specific audience. If you’ve lived with the problem long enough to be frustrated by it, you likely have a deep understanding of your target market’s pain points. But how well can you articulate it?
If you’re engaging with an MVP development partner, you should be able to clearly define:
What the problem is
Who experiences it most frequently
How they currently solve (or struggle to solve) it
Why your solution is better than existing alternatives
If you haven’t already, start having conversations with potential customers to validate your assumptions. The best ideas don’t live in isolation - they evolve through dialogue and iteration.
2. Have You Explored the Competitive Landscape?
Even if your problem is unique to your experience, chances are others have attempted to solve it in some way. Understanding the competition doesn’t mean you should be discouraged; rather, it provides valuable insights into:
Market demand for your solution
Gaps in existing offerings
How you can differentiate your MVP
Researching competitors also prepares you for discussions with investors, advisors, and development teams. Having a clear view of your market positioning will help you make strategic decisions throughout your MVP journey.
3. Have You Defined Your Core Features?
A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is just that - minimum and viable. Many founders fall into the trap of trying to build a fully featured product from day one. Like how we discussed above, the goal of an MVP is to test your idea with the least amount of time and resources required.
Ask yourself:
What is the absolute core function my product needs to provide?
What secondary features can be deferred to later versions?
What data or user feedback will help validate my concept?
At SwivelTech, our structured 12-week MVP Factory process ensures that we focus only on the features necessary to get real user validation, cutting unnecessary development cycles and maximising learning. Here’s how we built an MVP for the Australian Government.
4. Have You Built a Strong Inner Circle?
This inner circle plays a crucial role in refining your idea and providing initial support.
A strong network will help you:
Gain valuable feedback early on
Build confidence in your vision
Identify potential co-founders or advisors
If you haven’t yet discussed your idea with trusted industry peers, now is the time. These conversations often uncover hidden challenges or opportunities that can shape your approach.
What’s Next? — The MVP Development Process
Once you’ve validated your idea, researched the market, and built initial support, you’re now ready to develop your MVP. This includes:
Idea & Problem Definition: Refining your vision and aligning on the core problem.
Requirement Brief: Outlining the product scope, key features, and technical requirements.
Design Phase: Creating high-fidelity Figma screens to visualise the entire product.
Development: Using AI-powered tools to build a functional, scalable MVP.
Launch & Test: Deploying your product to early adopters, gathering feedback, and iterating.
This structured approach ensures that your MVP is not only built efficiently, but also designed for growth and scalability.
Wrapping up
For startups eager to make their mark, the Minimum Viable Product approach isn't just a methodology – it's a strategic advantage. By embracing the principles of lean startup, focusing on core value, and prioritising validated learning, while onboarding a trusted MVP development service you can significantly de-risk your innovation journey and accelerate your path to product-market fit.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should an MVP include?
An MVP should include only the core functionality necessary to solve a primary problem for your early adopters. It must be "viable," meaning it should be functional enough to be used, provide value, and allow you to gather meaningful user feedback.
What are the characteristics of an MVP?
Key characteristics of an MVP should include Functionality, Usability, Reliability (to a degree), Valuable, Learning Focused, Iterative, Cost-Effective and Time-Efficient.
What are the factors to consider in making a Minimum Viable Product?
When creating an MVP, consider these key factors:
Deeply understanding the Problem
Clearly define target audience (Early Adopters).
Understanding the competitive landscape
Identify and prioritise core features
Choose the most appropriate type of MVP
Plan how you will collect and analyse customer feedback
Resource availability and time
What is a Customer Feedback Loop in MVP?
In the context of MVPs, a Customer Feedback Loop is a crucial process. It involves: 1) Releasing your MVP to early adopters, 2) Actively collecting feedback on their experience, usability, and unmet needs, 3) Analysing this feedback to identify areas for improvement, and 4) Using these insights to inform the next iteration of your product. This loop is essential for a user-centric design and ensuring your product evolves to meet market demands.
What is Iterative Development in MVP?
Iterative Development in MVP is the practice of developing your product in cycles or iterations. You start with your MVP (initial release), gather early adopter feedback, and then use that feedback to make improvements and add features in subsequent versions (iterative development). Each iteration builds upon the previous one, guided by user data, ensuring continuous improvement and closer alignment with the market requirement.
What is an MVP example?
An MVP example would be Amazon. It was launched as an online bookshop with a basic website, offering a limited selection of books. This MVP allowed to assess the market demand for online book purchases before expanding into a wide-ranging e-commerce platform. Moreover, Canva is a prime example from Australia, it launched with a focused target market and steadily refined its offering to become a popular global design platform.
Is MVP a prototype?
No, an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is not the same as a prototype alone, though they are related concepts in product development. An MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is a basic, functional version of a product released to real users for testing and feedback. A prototype, on the other hand, is an early model or mock-up used to explore ideas before development. While a prototype helps visualise and refines the concept, an MVP is a working product that tests market demand. However, there are Prototype MVPs that combine elements of both a prototype and an MVP.
