Can You Design and Test an MVP in Just Four Weeks?

If you stumbled upon this article and have a product idea, I encourage you to make an introspection if you'd benefit from an MVP through a Startup Bootcamp with WANDR. However first you need to understand, what exactly is an MVP? An MVP in UX terms stands for Minimum Viable Product. It allows you to test your product idea with real users and gather insights to refine it with a small amount of investment. It’s not a finished or polished product--it is the minimum you need to start validating your idea.

With a solid strategy & design team with experience, the proper tools, and a well-rounded project organization you can bring to life your product idea to the design stage.

Start by asking these questions:

• Do you have a product idea?
• Do you know who might be your potential customers?
• Have you defined what is your value proposition?
• Have you done research regarding your potential target market and competitor’s landscape?
• Have you defined your main features?
• Lastly, have you brainstormed how you will monetize your product?

If you replied “Yes” to the majority of the questions, we’re ready to go!

Design Thinking

Most of the clients that come to build an MVP at WANDR through our Startup Bootcamp service come with that first approach covered. We then host a Design Thinking Workshop to brainstorm around those topics such as who is the target audience? What problem are we solving for them? How do we intend to solve that problem? How will I earn money by solving the problem?

The outcome of the workshop typically is to align on the project’s strategic direction, define what success looks like, and create a list of features or improvements to be prioritized. The Design Thinking Workshop is an essential step in order to build the product and its value proposition from the start.

Why Do I Need an MVP and the Startup Bootcamp?

It’s important to understand why you should consider a service the Startup Bootcamp when designing and testing an MVP, and how different services don’t always help you get to your product goals.

For example, we had FlipWell, a WANDR startup bootcamp client, that spent a year with another agency and only received a project summary report and some user flows. Even though those two assets are extremely important to start the project, some strategy and design professionals get stuck on what to do next. Ok, I have the structure but now what?

We often meet founders who spend their life savings on developing a new app, never once receiving feedback from the market before launching and then failing to acquire users after launching. Investing in product strategy and building an MVP first, mitigates your risk by validating your idea and receiving real feedback from potential users. Idea and business creatives spend months and thousands of dollars choosing agencies or labs that promise results directed toward their goals, but often times they are not met in the end.

Choosing the right frameworks to define the product is essential to optimize time and put the product idea into visuals along with a logical workflow.

Building an information architecture can be complex when you start from scratch. Defining what features we will be prioritizing and what would be our differentiator versus our competitors are critical questions to ask at this step. Along with discussing how we are genuinely proving there is value for our potential customers. Is the solution we’ve created applicable fully to their issues, or are we missing the point?

When building a product from scratch, you ask yourself thousands of questions, and you can enter that rabbit hole and never get out of it. That’s why it’s important to have a robust toolkit that guides you through each vital topic that must be covered. Also, having a proper expert leading those conversations is beneficial to your team and product as that person has an outside perspective, with ideally a non-biased opinion from previous internal discussions or assumptions.

Our Process

When working with WANDR, you will notice we count on a solid Strategy and Business toolkit that continuously evolves with the latest “Design a Business” trends of the current market. In staying ahead of current trends, our strategy involves thorough decision-making that will affect how your product differs from competitors.

From startup ideas to a solid head start in 4 weeks. Our process looks like this:

• Week 1: Facilitate the mentioned Design Thinking Workshop, and conduct UX Research.
• Week 2: Create the UX wireframes
• Week 3: Create high-fidelity screens and clickable prototype
• Week 4: Conduct usability testing and build the Investor Pitch Deck

Takeaway

The many benefits of investing in an MVP are to mitigate your time and financial risk. Utilizing an MVP gives you an opportunity to develop your idea with a small investment and test the market before spending additional resources on it. Through our process at WANDR, we find the answers to your questions while also giving you a better understanding of how your product can reach success.

If you have read this article and think you might be a fit, let’s get in contact to get started in making your idea a reality!

Book a free consultation call with our team, here.

What Questions Do You Have About Designing and Testing an MVP?

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