12 Types of MVPs Startups Founders Must Know About

Every software within any industry market aims to solve the pain points of the potential customers within the market. But only some businesses can launch a full-fledged product from the get-go, and that’s why MVPs are the most viable method for any business model.

There are many different types of MVPs out on the market. You might be thinking: “Which one should I go for?”

Today, we’ll be discussing different types of MVPs. It’ll ease the process for you to pick an MVP and improve the first user experience for the audience.

Why Are There So Many MVP Types?

The journey of every single MVP starts with a concept, a vision, and an estimate. The human mind is full of creativity and possibilities; thousands of people are getting new ideas every day. Only a few hundred decide to work on the idea and publish an MVP.

But most of the time, these ideas fall flat, and the core reasons behind those are:

1. The market isn’t looking for a product like the one that failed
2. The development requirement was much higher than the initial estimate
3. The features aren’t functioning as intended
4. The marketing method was insufficient to get the target market’s attention
5. The founder doesn’t consistently support the product

Every business idea starts from an assumption that a certain market needs something. When the assumption isn’t spot on, the final product has a higher chance of failing.

“If you try to please everyone, you will please no one.”

-Sudha Murty

An MVP can reduce both the risk of failing and loss. That’s why it’s not just a Minimum Viable Product; it’s also the Most Viable Process for approaching a target market.

How Many Types of MVPs Are There for Startups?

There are two main types of MVPs. However, the type of MVP will depend on the development process and your end goal for said development.

1. Low-Fidelity MVP Types: Low-fidelity MVPs are there to understand your customer’s issues and find solutions for the problems. But before you solve the issue with the MVP, you need to understand if the problem requires enough attention to build an app after it. If yes, then comes the time for picking the most effective method and sticking with it.
2. High-Fidelity MVP Types: High-fidelity MVP types are more monetization-oriented. Your main goal is to determine how many customers are ready to pay and how much they will spend on the features you provide. Then it’s all about figuring out the most viable marketing and growth strategies.

Types of Low-Fidelity MVP

Now that we know what Low-Fidelity MVPs are let’s take a look at some of the widely used Low-Fidelity MVPs

1. Landing Page MVP

A simple landing page can work as an MVP that can let potential users know that a product is coming soon via the page.

A landing page can also introduce the application’s core features to the customers. This helps you to connect with your target user base and keep them engaged with promises of future development while working on the upcoming version.

Pros:

1. Inexpensive and easy to publish
2. It can be used to measure the effectiveness of your UVP
3. It can be used to collect emails for future marketing campaigns
4. You can create multiple landing pages to test out messaging strategies

Cons:

1. There’s no conversion factor for landing pages.
2. Data collection opportunities are limited.

2. The Fake Door

A fake door approach is when you prompt the users to subscribe to your product before the product is even there. For the fake door approach, you’ll need a landing page.

A landing page can be considered similar to a fake door approach. However, the difference is that a standard landing page doesn’t lead anywhere.

Within your standard landing page, you can create a CTA button that encourages your audience to subscribe to your MVP. When they click on the CTA, it’ll lead them to a page informing the users that the app is still in development.

It may sound like misleading people, but it isn’t. The fake door method reveals how many users are willing to become paid customers with the number of clicks on the CTA.

Pros:

1. Great for measuring the audience’s reaction to the current subscription model
2. The data collected from the method can validate or invalidate any tested idea.
3. It can help you determine unwanted features and remove them to save costs and appease the audience.
4. Reduces the financial risks of creating a product the users don’t want

Cons:

1. High chance of being marked as a scam since the approach seems unethical to many.
2. Many users can interact with the CTA just out of curiosity and not buy into the product, distorting the data.

3. Email Campaign MVP

There are several methods to collect the email addresses of your potential clients. When you have collected enough email addresses, you can run an email campaign as an MVP to attract interested eyes to your product.

Pros:

1. It costs much less and can be implemented very fast and easily
2. You get to target a specific audience (your email list, in this case)
3. Allows you to interact directly with your potential user base

Cons:

1. To run an email campaign, you have to start by collecting a lot of emails, which can be a time-consuming process.
2. The conversion rate usually needs to be higher.
3. It works best as a follow-up step but rarely works as a standalone step

4. Marketing Campaign MVP

There are a lot of free and paid promotional methods available in the current market, the most accessible one being social media. You can run multiple marketing campaigns on different social media platforms to try and validate your MVP in front of a target audience.

Pros:

1. It helps you determine the points people like the most about your product concept.
2. Flexible enough to suit different target audience parameters
3. Easier to collect marketing statistics
4. You can run split tests and collect different sets of statistics to compare them, making product development more versatile

Cons:

1. Needs advanced marketing knowledge
2. Needs a lot of investment
3. The exposure isn’t as great as expected most of the time

5. No-Product MVP

No-product MVP is more of an abstract concept than a full-fledged product or even a basic product that can fulfill basic customer needs. An MVP isn’t always a product, even though the name suggests so. It can be a demo product design or a product idea as well.

Sometimes you can present your concept to the target audience to receive relevant feedback.

Pros:

1. It needs zero investment, as there’s no need to develop a product
2. Doesn’t need elaborate marketing strategies
3. Doesn’t need high-level investments
4. The future product and the core functionality can be set according to customer feedback

Cons:

1. The ideas may not be taken seriously since there’s no product to back them up
2. Concepts can be harder to explain without creating any form of concept in visual form

6. Explainer Video

As the name suggests, an explainer video is a short video you can either post on your landing page or any other video hosting site. This video will explain the core features of your product to the audience.

Pros:

1. Video MVPs are more lucrative to the masses since visual information is easier to understand
2. The demo videos don’t have to be high in production value, so it’s not expensive at all
3. People on social media can share the same video to build a bigger audience

Cons:

1. Features promised in the video must be delivered during the product launch, or it might be considered false advertising and result in a fail
2. Viewers may or may not comprehend the complete concept even when they’ve watched the entire video
3. Posting a video on the landing page might increase the landing page’s load time, resulting in a possible higher bounce rate.

7. Paper Prototypes

Paper prototypes are just sketches and handwritten ideas of your concept, which are the easiest to produce. It can be as simple as a sketch of your user interface that you can use to explain different features present in the UI.

Pros:

1. Requires next to zero time and effort
2. Allows users to experience the product before it even exists
3. It opens the way for receiving user feedback
4. Sketches can be quickly updated or modified

Cons:

1. It might seem amateurish to the audience, reducing the idea’s credibility.
2. Paper sketches often need to be more precise about the features they convey to the audience.

Types of High-Fidelity MVP

High-fidelity MVPs are more high-profile and will bring better results when launched. Here are a few examples of High-Fidelity MVPs.

8. Single-Feature MVP

Single-feature MVP is the most traditional way of approaching the market. Here, your product has only one basic functionality that focuses on solving one core pain point of the target audience.

When you are sure about the problem you’re trying to solve with your product, it’s easier to create a single-feature MVP. It lets you validate your idea by letting real users interact with it.

Pros:

1. Faster To develop
2. Easier to explain
3. Perfect for turning separate solutions into a different product
4. Reduces average cost to develop and publish

Cons:

1. It doesn’t have much room for user engagement since there’s only one feature
2. Single-feature MVPs are often perceived as incomplete products since many need help understanding the true intention of the founder.

9. Pre-Order MVP

Pre-order MVPs encourage the users to pay for the product’s features before it is launched. When you have an offer, you know your target audience can’t refuse; that’s when you can put the idea of Pre-order MVP into action.

Pre-order MVPs are effective when you have a great offer since you can simultaneously get paying customers and the funding for further development.

Pros:

1. This opens the way for launching a crowdfunding campaign for further development.
2. You’re just gaining money without developing anything other than the idea
3. It helps you to test functionalities before a complete release

Cons:

1. Since you have already taken payment, you must deliver what you promised, or even better in some cases.
2. The collection amount doesn’t reflect the interest of the people till the end. Many users may need to catch up halfway through development.

10. Concierge MVP

Concierge MVPs are completely human-driven products that simulate the experience of a multifunctional tool. With a concierge service, it’s easier to test public reception before the product is fully developed.

Pros:

1. Easier to validate your product and raise funds for further development
2. The product can be developed entirely from the MVP state
3. Concierge MVP is better for user behavior data collection

Cons:

1. It would help if you had peak human competence to mimic complete automation, which is not always possible.
2. Some operations may require partnerships with other companies, which requires more effort and divides the profit.

11. Wizard of Oz MVP

Like concierge MVP, Wizard of Oz MVP also serves its users through other humans. But the core difference here is that the whole product appears automated. Also, the target audience needs to be made aware of manual processing.

Pros:

1. It helps to test the market with an inexpensive product, lowering the development cost.
2. Rapid iterations can immediately test any changes to the MVP
3. Provides unique user behavior insights
4. Appeals to customers because of multiple functions and their seeming automation

Cons:

1. During service, the operators require unique and specific instructions tailored for different situations
2. The human competency factor makes the performance of the MVP highly inconsistent

12. Piecemeal MVP

Piecemeal MVP is when you use pre-existing tools and ideas to create and customize a new MVP suited to the needs of your target user base.

You can also target a pre-existing market base and create a modified and updated version of pre-existing apps that will cater to a specific audience.

Pros:

1. It takes fewer resources to develop since most are already available on the market.
2. Lower development time=higher marketing time
3. You can learn from the shortcomings of the pre-existing apps and better yourself accordingly.

Cons:

1. When trying to implement multiple features, seamless cooperation is tough to ensure.
2. Sometimes, third-party help is the best choice when trying to deliver results faster than others.
3. The product might get labeled unoriginal and fall flat right out of the gate.

What Type of MVP is Best for You?

An MVP is all about:

1. Finding the right users
2. Knowing what these users want
3. How to get them what they want

These three factors come down to the information you need to collect from the target market.

To Wrap It All Up

There’s a wide range of types of MVPs to choose from. Before you start researching the market for your MVP, you should research the MVP that will suit your business the most.

At Impala InTech, we’re always ready to help you make a choice and proceed with the development of your choice accordingly.

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