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5 common pitfalls while designing an MVP

  • Writer: Poornima K
    Poornima K
  • Nov 15, 2023
  • 2 min read

Updated: Jun 5, 2024


Image by Henrik Kniberg


Designing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a crucial phase in bringing a new product, idea or feature to market. It allows you to test your idea, gather user feedback, and validate assumptions before investing heavily in development. However, there are common pitfalls that many entrepreneurs and product teams fall into when creating an MVP. Here are 5 to look out for:

  1. All features are NOT essential from the get go. Try to distinguish between good-to-have, must-haves and cannot-live-without. Make sure to focus on the ones that make the product easy to use and memorable.

  2. Think lean. Even the features that you cannot-live-without can get inflated and unnecessary work when building the MVP. It may be tempting to provide 3 different options of contacting a business, or to integrate auto-suggest in an email, but it will only add to the time taken to build the features and create more room for bugs and errors.

  3. Keep user personas in mind while taking decisions. If the team cannot decide whether to include a phone call or message feature in your app, try to visualize what your target user group would do. Is your user a teenager who only texts or a busy mom who needs to contact someone on her drive home from work? Product-market fit relies heavily on making the MVP user centric.

  4. KPIs are important, even for MVPs. Identify the goal you are trying to reach with your MVP - is it awareness of the product, introducing a new feature or trying to capture a new user group? Make sure to identify and capture the relevant analytics while planning your MVP.

  5. Even negative feedback is essential. Your MVP is not meant to be complete or perfect. Multiple iterations and small increments, followed by user feedback are at the heart of Agile and Lean principles. Don’t be disheartened by negative feedback - it will only help to build a better version 2.


As a team, have your mission and product vision in mind at all times and accept that an MVP is a learning opportunity before anything else.

 
 
 

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