PoC or MVP?
The differences between Prototypes and Minimum Viable Products, and the benefits of testing before going live and big.
If you’re part of or interested in the startup world, you’re probably familiar with these two terms but if you’re new to the industry you’re probably wondering what this is all about.
Why do startuppers use all these different terms to describe a product and what do they mean?
PoCs (Proof of Concepts) or prototypes, and MVPs (Minimum Viable Products) do not represent what is usually defined as a product. They are both the lightweight, early versions of a final product. And so, what’s the difference?
The difference is that they are created in different steps in the product building process. But let’s dive more into depth.
What’s a PoC?
A proof of concept or prototype is the first attempt to make something tangible out of an idea. In the case of a user interface, this can be in the form of paper sketches, a more simple representation, or a digital prototype, if you wish to showcase it to stakeholders and investors. But also if you want to validate if a concept is feasible a functional prototype can be used to build the main concepts of a system with real code. Based on that you can test if the system provides the expected results.
A prototype is mainly used to understand whether an idea works or not. That’s the reason why you, as an entrepreneur, should not invest too much money and time into building it.
This is the beauty of prototypes. They are non-committal and can be used in every stage of the product development process: from realizing and creating tangible ideas to making iterations on something already existing. Prototyping is an effective way to investigate concepts, analyze usability, and improve usefulness.
Benefits of a PoC:
- Easy and quick to build
- Cost-efficient
- Reduces costs and time-to-market
What’s an MVP?
In many industries time to market is crucial and the most obvious way to approach that is to save development time by focussing on the most important features first. More features can be added at later points in time. That approach leads to going live with an MVP.
An MVP is a minimum viable product, which is launched on the market for customers to use, but it has limited functionalities to interact with. It’s usually built once you already have an understanding of your audience and their needs.
Eric Ries describes it perfectly in The Lean Startup.
“MVP is the version of a new product that allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort”.
Essentially, an MVP is a product with the minimum amount of features that are necessary to onboard and engage customers early on and begin the learning-feedback process. It’s fundamental to incorporate learnings as fast as possible and make changes and iterations accordingly to re-polish a more customer-centric version of your product.
Benefits of an MVP:
- Helps to evolve your product thanks to feedback
- Reduces development costs
- Supports stakeholders acquisition
- Allows quicker time-to-market
The etonec methodology
In 2020 we established our Prototyping Factory at etonec to support others in transforming their ideas into sustainable business models.
In order to achieve this goal, we created a PoC process to go through together with our clients when working on a prototyping project.
Starting off with the research and understanding phase, we then perform an iterative process of development and operations where we design and build on various levels, gather constant feedback, and make changes and improvements.
The results of this process can range from a clickable dummy to showcase to investors and stakeholders, to a more in-depth functional prototype with an implementation of the application's core concepts in a moderate amount of code.
Summary
To wrap it up: Whether you should go for a PoC or directly start with an MVP is your call and choice depending on your advancement and validation stage.
If you’ve just started working on your business and your idea is still very rough, I would genuinely recommend you start with a prototype to analyze the usability of your idea before you pass onto an MVP and start gathering customer data. Also, at this very early stage, you still need to validate the market and a prototype is the best and fastest way to do so.
On the other hand, if you’re in a more advanced stage and would like to gather feedback from your target audience, go for an MVP and prepare your backlog for then entering the market with a product, which is 100% validated and worth building.
I hope you enjoyed the text and feel free to reach out to me anytime for further chats!
