A Minimum Viable Product can help you set your foot in the market as a company with a tangible product that users can interact with. When making an initial product, you can either build it for web or mobile platforms. Should you make for just one or both?
The answer is: Only for one platform of your choice. Still, we’ll discuss all mobile MVP vs. web MVP and let you choose your preferred platform to start your development process.
What is A Mobile App MVP?
A mobile app MVP is the minimum viable version of a mobile application. And, of course, it’s developed for mobile platforms.
Mobile apps starting as an MVP is a great idea since you can test the waters with it early on and continue integrating user feedback further down the development line.
Why Do You Need a Mobile App MVP?
To Prove Product Viability
When creating a minimal product, you are trying to see if your idea works as a product that appeals to your target audience. When the audience likes what you publish, it validates your idea of the product and justifies further development.
To Receive Early Feedback From Users
Maybe from a functionality perspective, your MVP is more suitable as an app than a website. It could also be that most of your users are on mobile rather than a website.
You can gather user feedback with an MVP that serves basic functions. When your target audience uses the product, they can provide feedback on different functions of the product that they like or dislike. It’s the best guidance you can have for further development.
To Debug The App Before the Final Release
No matter how good or professional your development team is, there will always be a bug or two in the product they develop. By releasing a product early, you can test the functionalities in real-time with real users and iron out the kinks.
What Is A Web App MVP?
A web app MVP is, of course, an MVP, but this one is created for web platforms and also can be web-based. Like a mobile MVP, this one also serves minimal functionality to its target user base.
Why Do You Need a Web App MVP?
Similar to mobile MVP, a web MVP serves various purposes. Without sounding like a broken record, I’ll put the reasons in a list to make things easier.
- You can validate your idea with minimal cost
- Reduces the number of mistakes and bugs in the final product
- You get to avoid technical debt
- Easier to gather user feedback based on individual user experience
- Well-executed web app MVP can get you funding for further development
- Time to market is reduced
- You can create future product strategies based on real-time market insights
So, Do You Need Both? If Not, Why?
The answer is no. Allow me to elaborate on three factors supporting my answer.
1. Time Is The Biggest Concern
The first reason for opting for an MVP approach is to reduce the development time and time to market. When you’re creating two versions of the same thing, it increases your development time. Here are a few ways how that happens:
- The mobile and web app has two separate code bases, which must be constantly maintained individually.
- You need to publish different versions into different app markets, which requires much intricate knowledge about the market to make the launch successful.
- You need different code testing frameworks, which increases development costs. Of course, the testing takes time too.
- If you decide to implement a new feature, you will have to implement it twice for both versions. So you’re doing the same thing twice, which takes up more time.
- You will need to implement compatible security measures for both versions, which is time-consuming.
So, why waste time building two of the same things when the first thing you’re targeting to do is to take as little time as possible?
2. When The Version Changes, So Does Your Target Audience
The first two things that you need to know thoroughly when you’re creating a new MVP are:
- Your target market
- Your target audience/ user base
Suppose you target one market but change the functionalities in a certain way. In that case, there’s a chance that your target market will be affected because your product might end up targeting a different market altogether with the new features.
And when your target market changes, so does your target audience. So how do the different MVP platforms come into play?
People looking for a web app and those looking for a mobile app are looking for their preferred choices for entirely different reasons. The version of your app is tied to the audience you are targeting.
3. The “Hybrid App” Thing Is Just An Illusion
Even when there are apps that can cross-platform apps, it’s all just smoke and mirrors. At the end of the day, the codebase is always different, and they need separate testing maintenance anyway.
And, of course, all that additional maintenance is eating up your development time and resources.
How to Decide the Type of MVP You Should Go For?
So, you must now be at a crossroads as to which one you should opt. But the simple answer here is: it’s your choice.
You know what’s best for your business and who your targeted users are. All you need to know is their preferred platform, and start building your MVP based on that.
It can be a web or mobile app, but at the end of the day, the choice comes down to what you need to serve the most to your initial customers.
To Wrap It All Up
The one true goal of an MVP is to grab the attention of the targeted industry with a viable product as fast as possible. Your primary concern should always be to save time as much as possible.
Do you need help with how you can get your product out the door faster? Feel free to ask for professional assistance from our developers at Impala Intech!
FAQs
Yes, you can create a mobile version of your web MVP during development.
It depends on the scope of the MVP. Though a mobile version is considered to be a more lightweight version of the app, if the app has features that take more resources to implement, it can get expensive.
Analyze your current business situation, and find out the preferred device for the majority of your users. Then launch the MVP for the platform that wins in the numbers.
Judging by the current demographic, a mobile MVP should get you more traction since mobile users are ever-increasing.
The marketing process may differ a bit from time to time, but since they are two different versions of the same product the core marketing remains the same.