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Why an MVP is Important Part in Mobile App Development Cycle

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As an entrepreneur, you have taken a right decision to develop a mobile app for your business enterprise and stay ahead of the competitors. However, there always remains an apprehension whether your app will be successful or not. So, to counter that trepidation and lower the risk factors, you can rely on the Minimum Viable Product or MVP, which helps the business organizations and startups in evaluating the risks and threats before putting an idea into life. Definition of the MVP The Minimum Viable Product has been a great asset for the business enterprises. It allows the developers to test the idea of the app with the customers. The MVP can also be considered as the base architecture of any mobile app. One of the vital aspects of the MVP is that includes the most essential features of the app that you think is necessary. The development team initially receives a feedback from the potential users and thus they can make out what the response of the product is in the market. They can also analyze what are the specific segments that needs an improvement and where the performance is not up to the mark. You can either release the MVP to a set number of targeted audiences or launch it directly into the market. If the users are not pleased with its features, you know there is something wrong in the app idea and it needs to be refurbished. Why is the MVP Necessary for Your Mobile App? With the competition getting stiffer, the importance of having an MVP for any mobile app has enhanced in the current scenario. It is a point where you actually get to know whether your app idea is really unique or not. It offers you the shortest possible route to reach the market and have an access to the real user experience to evaluate your project. Fastest and Accurate Way to Receive User Review About the App Maybe you come across some idea one fine day and spend days and months building an app based on that. This surely is an unreasonable approach because you cannot predict what the end result would be. But having an MVP will provide an opportunity to get the fastest and accurate method to receive the user opinion on the app. You will only have to focus on implementing only those features, which will enhance the user experience and people need it. MVP is Considered as Core of the App The major function of the Minimum Viable Product is to only emphasize on the primary idea and key app features. It does not concentrate on the other secondary or not so important issues. As such, the ideology of Lean startup gets the benefit of MVP approach. The Lean Startup can be defined as a startup, which commences with lowest budget within a reasonable time. The MVP app offers adequate value to try it intending to get the maximum number of customers within shortest possible time. You are at the least risk step. It also reduces the cost of app development as only basic features are implemented. Therefore, we can say that MVP does not indicate that the app owner is falling short of budget estimate but rather he gets the core idea of the market. MVP Helps to Evaluate the App Performance The Minimum Viable Product is also proving to be quite a handy tool for evaluating and rating the performance of the app. The developer can check if he is moving in the right direction and making use of the latest technology and trends while creating an app. Ultimately, it is the users who would actually determine whether or not your MVP app has been successful or not. How this is done? Firstly, you get to know if you have been successful in solving the problem of the users through the app. Secondly, you get to test the success rate of the app during the initial stages only, which helps in saving money and time as well. MVP Allows to Deal with Security Issues Better Today, undeniably, the app security has become paramount specifically if your app has in-built payment facility. The MVP will help you in identifying the security loopholes and resolve them appropriately. Another advantage of fixing the security issues at the initial stage is that your app remains bug-free right from the beginning, which in turn increases the conversion rate of the app. It also allows users to navigate seamlessly. Creating an Improved Version of the App The Minimum Viable Product lets you analyze whether the app is getting the user attention in the market or not. If you feel that you have not got the expected feedback or failed to connect the app idea to the users, then, it’s time to redesign the product and look for creating a better version of the app. Few Examples of Popular Apps with Great MVP Success If you research well, you will come across many living instances where the successful MVP launch resulted in immensely popularizing the apps. Let’s discuss a few of these: Uber The cab booking app – Uber also started its initial journey with the MVP launch. In its very first version, Uber mainly focused on establishing a good connection between the drivers with the users and also added the facility of credit card payments. However, soon it stated getting tremendous response and today it has transformed into a billion dollar business with a plethora of advanced features. Instagram Next, we come to one of the most popular photo sharing app Instagram with the largest number of users. Talking about its initial version, the users had limited number of filters when sharing the photos. Also, the market was flooded with better photo editing apps, when they entered into the venture. However, slowly and gradually, the company started gaining the impetus and added Unique Value Proposition (UVP) allowing users to edit and share the photos at the same time. In addition, now it

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Estimating the Cost of MVP Development for a Mobile App

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You might be having a brilliant app idea at the back of your mind that you want to finally execute. But just hold on for a minute and calm down your nerves. Before you implement your plan, think over it again. Are you damn sure that your app idea is 100% unique and authentic? Are you absolutely convinced that your mobile app will receive a grand welcome in the market and that the users will start downloading and installing it as soon as it is unveiled? No, certainly not. Nobody in the world can predict what status your mobile application would hold in the future. So, if you are not prepared to take a risk and rather approach a safer route, then it is highly recommended to opt for building an MVP or the Minimum Viable Product of your app. Of course, it would cost you some additional bucks but you don’t have to launch your app with a stressful mind and perceive which way the wind blows. What is a Minimum Viable Product(MVP)? What is an MVP and why is it so important for your mobile application? A Minimum Viable Product or simply MVP can be defined as a set of most essential and minimum features that allows the development team to check the viability of the product and determine the validity of the idea through customer feedback and application usability. Why is MVP Necessary to Develop? If we go through a few reliable statistics, then it would be known that 74% of the startups fail due to premature business strategy, which is not going for MVP before the app release. Similarly, 29% of the startup fails because of financial crisis. The concept of MVP was introduced in the 2001 and since then its scope and benefits have become much wider. It offers you several advantages such as: Setting the Core Functionalities and App Features to get an early version of the product after viable testing Invite investors and win over stakeholders to invest in your app Allowing to evolve the product through the iterative process MVP helps to be cost-effective It minimizes the risk factor before launching the app Let’s have a quick look at the cost estimation of developing an MVP for some of the most popular and widely used applications in the global scenario. Take such as Twitter. Now, if you ask the price estimate for creating an MVP similar to twitter, then you would have to pay $10.000. Similarly, if you are planning to launch an MVP for an app same as Facebook, be ready to pay $15.000 for its prototype. Please don’t misinterpret it with the cost of developing an entire mobile app; we are only emphasizing on the Minimum Viable Product here. Vital Factors that Determine the Cost of MVP Development The cost of developing a Minimum Viable Product or MVP for a mobile application depends on a number of variable factors. The factors are more or less similar to creating a full-fledged app, which is ready to be launched. In most of the cases, the App Development Companies charge their client based on per hour basis and multiply it with the total number of hours spent on development. The Kind of App The Minimum Viable Product chiefly depends on the complexity of the application idea. If the app idea would be challenging, so would be the MVP. You have to primarily decide what are the most important key features that you want to integrate in the app initially through an MVP. Let’s suppose say you are building an MVP for a cab booking app. Here apart from the registration process, third-party implementation, payment gateway, database encryption and a powerful admin panel becomes necessary to include in the MVP. The best part of the job would be categorizing the app features into three categories like must to included, nice to include and not include at all. You should be able to answer the question as how would your app prove helpful for the end users. Make sure the first version of your MVP is simple having basic features and functionalities, Later on you can go on with collecting the data and more complex versions. The scope of MVP also depends on the business requirements. You need to work on product development and customer development simultaneously. The Cost of MVP Design You also need to consider the cost of MVP design and its difficulty and so it is advisable to plan this important aspect in advance. Here, we are talking about the User Interface. Always note that the first initial design has a separate cost. Try to keep the design simple and straightforward that is easily understandable. In addition, you also have to design an attractive user experience design as well. The main components on which the UX design of the MVP depends are the preparation for the design, the wireframe, the mockup and lastly the interaction within the page. In the first stage, you have to begin with the initial preparation of the design. It would probably include a few meetings and discussions with the team members on how to proceed with the task and then take on the next step, which is wireframe and mockup. The wireframe is the skeleton or the basic structure of the MVP design. Here you prepare a rough layout of the navigation screen and other important elements. You can take the help of tools like Bootstrap for designing the wireframe. The wireframe usually takes around 16 to 20 hours and cost around $400. In the next stage, you proceed with the mockup, which is a kind of prototype and is one of the essential steps of the designing process. Here you present and design the MVP based on the ideas to make the client better understands, on what you are trying to do. If you are familiar with designing tools such as Adobe Photoshop or Corel Draw, then designing the mockup would become rather easier. As far as the time consumption is concerned, it takes around 40 hours and would cost

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The Advantages of Hiring a Full Stack Developer to Develop MVP

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But the question is, why not hire a full stack developer who can carry out the project with comprehensive responsibility and put all his experience behind to deliver the best. Moreover, it would also prove out to be budget-friendly as well.It wouldn’t be wrong to quote that the Minimum Viable Product or the MVP is the spinal cord or backbone of your mobile application. As before constructing a building, it is necessary to lay the foundation stone and prepare a base structure; which supports the entire edifice, similarly the MVP offers a robust foundation to your mobile application. It allows you to implement the most important features of your application and the essential feedback from your potential customers to know if you can mould your idea to give it a proper shape. Most of the start-ups begin with the MVP development before moving on to the full-fledged web product. Well, this is the right step as it minimizes the risk of product failure upon its launch. Of course, you would be looking at professional developers to cater the job, unless and until you are extremely confident that you can build the MVP on your own. But the question is, why not hire a full stack developer who can carry out the project with comprehensive responsibility and put all his experience behind to deliver the best. Moreover, it would also prove out to be budget-friendly as well. Defining the Full Stack Development When we talk about the full stack development, it combines both the major roles required to develop an app; the front-end and the backend besides creating the database and connecting it completely. You can choose one or more full stack developers to do the wok depending on the project requirements. As the name indicates, full stack developers cater the entire project from designing the concepts to deploying the product appropriately. You can categorize the entire full stack development in three stages namely: The Front-end or the Presentation Layer This focuses on the client-side development of the app where you create the User Interface. As a full stack developer, you need to be adept with front-end development as your role would be building a highly responsive and functional app. As far as the language is concerned, you should have a thorough knowledge of JavaScript, CSS, Bootstrap, and HTML. The bootstrap will help in designing the content and layout. Regarding the JavaScript frameworks, it is better to be familiar with React, Angular, and Vue.js. The Backend or the Business Logic This is known as the server-side layer of the application. You need to make use of the backend languages to develop the logic for the web app. Here too, you should have the expertise in two or more server-side languages or frameworks such as Node.js with Express.js, Ruby with Ruby on Rails or Python with Django and Java with Spring MVC etc. Java isn’t a dynamic language. If you are choosing the static language, you have to write more codes but it would be easier to maintain. The Database The database is also one of the crucial aspects of the backend programming. In this step, you need to precisely develop and maintain the databases and therefore, this is where your knowledge of database languages would play a key role. You can divide the database languages into two categories; Relational and Non-relational. The former is based on tables and rows for the data storage while the second stores the data in the JSON format. Now, coming to the important database languages, which you should know include MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB. The first two languages belong to the Relational category whereas the MongoDB is used as the non-relational database. The Full Stack Developers or the T-Shaped Professionals A full stack developer is always considered as Jack of All Trades but Master of few. They have adequate familiarity with most of the technologies and programming languages used for developing the mobile apps. And in the mobile development industry, these expert all-rounders are also termed as the T-shaped professionals. Is it not sounding odd? The question is who are these professionals and why are they called so. Well, the answer is that he is a highly skilled person who not only adequately experienced or is the master of one or more niches but also has well-versed knowledge of other niches as well. They are largely different from the I-shaped professionals whose expertise lay in one or two areas only. The full stack developer possesses knowhow about wide range of software and programming languages apart from the front-end and the backend development. So, they have an upper hand over the conventional developers and that is why their demand is more in the market. Plus, they keep on updating their skills and technical knowledge as new technologies and software keep coming at regular intervals. They are well acquainted with the modern and recent trends prevailing in the mobile app development industry. If as a client you are going with the traditional method of app development, then you need to hire the project manager, the front-end and the back-end app developers separately, the UI and the UX designers, the app tester etc. all individually. On the contrary, just by roping in for a full stack developer, you are banking upon a person who would carry out all responsibilities. This proves to be a great cost-saver, just imagine. Skills Required for Full Stack Developer We have already discussed in the earlier paragraph that in order to become a full stack developer, you should have extensive knowledge in three important domains including the front-end development, the backend development, and familiarity with database and web storage. In addition, we have also mentioned about the important programming languages and frameworks that you need to learn and use optimally for building the app. This included popular JavaScript frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue.js for the front-end development, languages such as Ruby, Python, Node.js, PHP and Java for the server-side building lastly the

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