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by Seven Peaks on Jan 11, 2024 12:00:00 PM
In the ever-evolving digital age where new FinTech companies continually unveil financial and banking products, considering the MVP development concept becomes imperative. This approach serves as a key process to ensure the creation of a product that authentically aligns with the needs of your target customers amid intense market competition.
What is MVP?
The MVP, or minimum viable product, is a crucial process designed to mitigate the risk of creating products or services that may not resonate with the market. Often referred to as an MVP prototype, this approach allows startups to solicit feedback from their target customers, understanding their preferences and dislikes. Utilizing this valuable feedback, FinTech products can be developed with a higher likelihood of success.
The widespread recognition of the MVP concept gained momentum after the release of Eric Ries's book, "The Lean Startup," in 2011. Ries introduced the idea of crafting a minimum viable product (MVP) ready for market launch, proving particularly effective for startups operating in environments where comprehensive solutions are essential to meet target market needs.
While the term "minimum viable product" gained prominence in the early 2010s, the fundamental principles of iterative development, user feedback incorporation, and a focus on essential features have circulated within software development communities for many years.
7 Key Benefits of Using MVPs for FinTech Products
Before embarking on FinTech development for market release, understanding the advantages of employing MVP for digital product development is essential. Here, we present seven key benefits:
1. Maximum Return on Investment
Creating a fully-featured FinTech digital product according to the initial vision can be both costly and time-intensive. However, initiating product development with the MVP concept can reduce initial development costs and allocate resources more efficiently. As each development phase meets expectations, you can increase funding for subsequent versions and continue the evolution of the product.
2. Improved Product Velocity
The FinTech industry is undergoing rapid evolution, emphasizing the significance of time in product development for market launch. Introducing a FinTech product developed with the MVP concept enables a swift market entry, facilitating the prompt gathering of feedback from real users—both positive and negative.
3. Accurate Product Assessment
MVP facilitates the testing of hypotheses and validates the necessity of your financial solution. Valuable user feedback aids in refining your product to align with the genuine needs of users. By integrating this feedback into your product development, you enhance the likelihood of creating a product that effectively addresses the requirements of your target audience.
4. Efficient Risk Mitigation
MVP mitigates the risk of developing a product that might not resonate with users or fulfill market needs. It also facilitates learning and adaptation without the need to allocate substantial resources, including capital, time, and personnel, to the development of something that lacks genuine demand.
5. Improved Iterative Development
Every FinTech product demands ongoing enhancement to adhere to regulations, address security considerations, and adapt to swiftly changing market dynamics. MVP approach facilitates continuous iterative development, incorporating user feedback to guarantee that the ultimate product aligns with user expectations.
6. Enhanced Main Functionality
Identifying and prioritizing the vital features of a FinTech product enables the delivery of value to users right from the beginning. MVP approach proves instrumental in streamlining development and ensuring that your product effectively tackles users' fundamental challenges.
7. Effective Response to Users
MVP drives you to involve customers early in the development process of digital products. Advocating a customer-centric development approach increases the likelihood that your FinTech product or financial solution will garner positive feedback from the market.
MVP Approach in 4 Steps
When developing a FinTech solution using the MVP approach, you will go through the process and steps required to create a digital product that your target customers will love and want to use. Here are the four steps involved:
1. Identifying Main Functionalities through Market and Competitor Analyses
To initiate, you must outline the essential features that will constitute the core functionality of your financial solution. These features should address users' needs or resolve financial issues. For instance, if customers face challenges accessing traditional banking loans, consider what features your product should have to assist them.
Before determining the MVP of your FinTech solution, conducting market research is crucial. Analyze your existing and potential competitors, understand their offerings to customers, and gather insights into what customers appreciate or dislike about their products. This process aids in identifying market gaps where you can introduce new features that align with customer needs.
2. Accelerate DevOps Velocity
After identifying the essential features that will contribute to making your FinTech product a minimum viable product (MVP), proceed to construct the minimum features required to provide value to users. Emphasize simplicity and user-friendliness during this phase.
We suggest employing an Agile development methodology to iterate and enhance your product incrementally. This process may include swift prototyping, continuous integration with other relevant components, and the integration of feedback from actual users to enhance the product in subsequent updates.
3. Test the Product and Gather Feedback from Real Users
Once you have developed a ready-to-use MVP, the crucial step is to introduce this prototype to a small target user group. Allow them to try it out to gather feedback on their user experience. Identify any weaknesses or shortcomings in the initial prototype and assess whether the core features meet their needs.
Another task to perform after receiving feedback is to use analytical tools and conduct user testing to collect both quantitative and qualitative data on user interactions with this initial MVP. All the gathered information will be crucial for refining and advancing your FinTech prototype in the future.
4. Keep Iterative Development for Continuous Improvement
Another crucial phase in MVP development involves analyzing feedback from actual users and initiating the iteration process to tackle issues, enhance the user interface, and contemplate the addition of new features to meet user requirements.
The aforementioned processes form part of an ongoing iterative development cycle, gradually broadening the scope of your FinTech product beyond its initial introduction to the market. Ultimately, this approach allows you to craft a FinTech solution that caters to the evolving needs of users in new markets.
Turn Your FinTech Idea into Tangible Products
Leveraging the MVP approach for your FinTech startup is a robust strategy to efficiently construct, test, and enhance your financial product. It enables you to navigate the competitive landscape, minimize risks, and ensure your eventual digital product aligns seamlessly with user expectations and market demands. Reach out to us today to begin the development of your product.
