The job of an MVP is very different from that of a stable product with a huge user base, so testing an MVP also takes a different approach. Testing and validating your MVP is a means to ensure you are not wasting valuable resources on a product that doesn’t target a viable market or is not technically feasible. Hyperspace Ventures has spent years building MVPs for various clients and have also transformed these MVPs into stable products after various rounds of testing and development. Here are 3 ways to test a minimum viable product as a startup: 

1. Landing Pages - Contrary to common belief, a landing page should be the firstthing to go out in the market. The landing page can capture data to show theinterests of the customers. The landing page should always be followed bytracking analytics such as Google Analytics. For one of our own products, webuilt a landing page with an option to get on a waitlist months before the actualproduct launch. The analytics also helped us gain insight through the users’behavior and interactions on the landing page and the waitlist gave us directaccess to some of our potential early adopters. 

2. Customer Interview - Once you have an MVP ready, the customers - especially theearly adopters - can provide you with insightful feedback for the product. Collecthonest feedback from customers by asking for unfiltered, unrestricted responses.In order to get the right kind of insights, you must know what kind of questions toask. For example, you could list down problems that your product aims to solveand ask your customers about them. Tell them to rank these problems andunderstand how desperate they are for the solutions. You can also ask themabout features they’d like to see and features they thought were not very useful inthe product. Some of our clients have completely switched their product roadmapafter conducting interviews on their MVPs and today they are one of our fastestgrowing clients. 

3. Digital Prototypes - Very often, investors want to understand the vision of theproduct and see the MVP version as soon as possible. For most products,developing an MVP takes a few months. In such situations, creating a wireframeprototype is very helpful. This can be as high-level as screenshots of theapplication pages or as detailed as creating a detailed wireframe using Figma (orsimilar tools) and connecting each page to make it interactive for the user. Thisdetailed version can help users walk through the application and truly understandhow it will work and look and feel without waiting for the MVP for months. Digitalprototypes are also a very helpful way of validating your MVP before putting inthe time and money to build it out.