When is the right time to launch an MVP?

The answer to that is, 'as soon as you can'. Not in months, but weeks after finalizing the earlier development stages. Make sure that you don't rush there.

Once you have an idea and validated it, launch your MVP in a few weeks. Get your product into the market fast.

That's the whole point of an MVP. The minimum viable product is an initial offering with very limited functionality to have the users experience your concept.

Launch quickly 

Don't wait too long on your idea. We have seen a lot of founders make this mistake. They wait for months to build a whole bunch of features before launching their product.

The founders are thinking that they don't want to launch their MVP until it's rock solid perfect, otherwise, it will fail and they don't want to waste all the time they spent on developing it.

That's not the point of an MVP. 

In essence, you launch an MVP with a goal to improve the final product. The thing that will fail you is when you fail to improve your product.

Think of it like this, people are dealing with problems out there and you happen to have a solution.

If you can make an effort to solve their problem and make things better, they'd be happy about it. Of course, there's always a lot of room for improvement after launching your MVP.

By launching it quickly, you come to know about the problems and resolve them quickly as well. So it's kind of a win-win situation for both founders and the users.

Get someone to use your product 

You don't have to find a big user base to test out your initial product. All you need is a handful of people (you'd be super lucky if you have more than that) and see how they are responding to your product.

If you've got a few early adopters, you can do amazing things with your MVP. By "amazing things", I mean you can do A/B testing, get feedback and iterate on it to improve your MVP further. 

The first few users are quite important. If you build a product that thousands of people will use daily, then that would make you successful. But it is not necessary to just aim for a thousand users the moment you launch.

Take care of the first 10, 20, 30, or 100 users. Focus on making things better for the users you have and more users will come your way.

Talk to your users

So, a lot of founders resist talking to their users right after the product launch. They believe that users might not have a complete experience of the product. That's why the users are more likely to give crude feedbacks to an unfinished product. 

Some founders are even more petrified and think asking for feedback in the initial stages might risk the product image forever.

Well, none of this is true. It's super critical to learn about your users' pain points. Talking to users will help you to come up with solutions/improvements that they need.

You can't just boldly assume that what you have built is useful or valuable because it might not be the case for your target audience. So, in any case, you are obliged to listen to your users.

Now, you have done everything in order. It's time for you to...

Iterate. Iterate. Iterate

You have to acknowledge the shortcomings of your MVP and improve it by making adequate changes as per your userbase.

If you are satisfied with how things are going, then keep doing what you're doing. In case you feel that there is no room for improvement, watch closely and look for problems within the solution.

Keeping your MVP as simple as possible is always a good idea. So you and your team can add more features to the MVP without distracting yourself from refining it, just like Apple did with their first iPhone.

The moment you find that something is not working properly, be quick to fix it. Do whatever it takes to make sure that your MVP solves the problem for your users.

Launches are over-hyped

We all love a product launch that has a sense of ballyhoo around it. But the thing is, most MVPs don't hit that big-bang launch day.

Perhaps, it's because they don't need a big launch.

Most MVPs start with a few users who try out a product for free and then gradually increase over time. Those MVPs are more like "soft launches" when compared to traditional launches.

Do you remember the day Facebook, Twitter, or Twitch were launched? Well, many names come to mind when you think of companies that did not launch big.

Most MVPs are like that, MVPs that grow explosively, have little to do with how they had been launched and more to do with exceptional marketing strategy and fast release cycles. That's one of the main reasons why big media houses start to sing their praises over time.

In conclusion

So now you know when is the best time to launch an MVP. The answer might be surprising to some of you. But as quickly as you launch, the better it is for your product.

If you’ve already done your research, gotten feedback from users and investors, then it’s probably a good idea to get started with building your product right away.

Launch in 45 days or sooner! With BufferMint, launching this soon is easier than ever before.

Our team of experts will guide you through every step of the process so that you can focus on what features should go into your MVP next. Book a discovery call now.