How to Start a Startup?

Jan 10, 2020 | Entrepreneurship

In order to build a start up, it is always important to find product market fit. One of the ways to do this is to build an MVP and launch it. This article explores how to build an MVP, which should be the first step to building your startup.

 

 

What is an MVP?

Definition: An MVP stands for a Minimum Viable Product – not Most Valuable Player!

An MVP is the first version of your product, with condensed functionality and a small set of users, think of it as a prototype. The simplest, most basic version of what it is you want to create.

Building an MVP is a crucial part of building a lean process or a product. This means designing and building it with as little redundancy as possible.

How to build one?

 

1.     Research

Say you have thought about the start-up you would like to create. The first thing to do is your research. This does not need to be an elaborate, 3-month long process where you deploy the scientific method to ascertain how accurate your hypothesis is.

Speak to your potential users, and if you don’t know who your users are: Houston, we have a problem. You should not be developing anything unless you know who you are targeting.

When thinking about a business idea, there are two key questions you need to answer

  • What is the problem I am trying to solve?
  • Who is looking for this solution?

Once you have answered these two questions, lock them down and don’t compromise on them. Remember this diagram:

 

2.     Building your MVP

 

There are countless tools that allow you to build a MVP almost free of cost. In Mauritius, it’s easy to say that they are no viable or affordable online payment facilities, but the truth of the matter is that you don’t need one: When Airbnb launched their MVP, they had no payment facilities – users where paying home owners with cash on arrival. They also did not have any map views that allowed users to view where exactly the space they were about to rent was. And the cherry on top of the cake is that one of the founders was coding part time.

 

 

If you want to start prototyping, here are a few tools that might help:

 

 

3.     LAUNCH!

Launch, and launch quickly. Don’t fixate on making whatever it is you are building perfect.

Starting social media pages costs nothing. So for the third time, LAUNCH IT!

Once that is done talk to your users, understand how they use your solution, get as much feedback as you can. Remember to keep these two factors fixed.

  • The problem you are looking to solve
  • The target customer

 

This will bring us to our next step.

 

4.     Iterate

 

Iterating means to adapting your product while keeping the feedback you have received in mind.

There is a clear difference between Iterating and Pivoting. Remember the diagram from Earlier?

Here is the diagram explaining the difference between an iteration and a pivot:

 

And there you go… Getting started on your business is as simple as this. So launch your business idea and apply to Test Drive!

 

Some references for this article: