Drupal MVP for Startups
Do you know the story of Facebook?
Mark Zucker burg, its CEO started this as a social media tool to connect with friends who were the students of Harvard University itself. Later on, he expanded his Idea and today Facebook has 2.80 billion monthly active users with 1.84 billion daily users. Amazon also shares a similar kind of story. Jeff Bezos started Amazon as an online bookstore. Every time he got an order from his online store, he used to buy the books from the distributor and then used to ship them to the customer. Little later, he started to add a few more products to his store, which later on turned into a warehouse. Today, Amazon has 300 million active users.
The above two-story are the story of two different oriented services, but the reason why they became successful is the same. Today around 20% of start-ups close within their first two years. The basic reason behind the failure of the start-up is a lack of planning. MVP is an important concept used while planning any start-up.
What is MVP?
MVP stands for a minimum viable product. It is the initial form of product/service released for the customer. It is a development technique to introduce a new product with its basic features on the market to get customer’s attention. Its main purpose is to collect feedback from customers before releasing the full and final product or service. It gives an idea to the entrepreneur that how the customer thinks about this new idea.
Characteristics of an MVP
Any MVP should have the following three characteristics:
- It should be able to make people wait for it.
- It should give some benefits for early birds.
- It should be able to provide feedback that can be used later on.
- It is a marketing strategy, which is frequently used by startups nowadays.
Now the question arises, how to make the customer aware of your new product. You can do it all by using any of the methods mentioned below.
Landing Pages: By creating a landing page you may be able to announce your new product or service to the customer. You can also ask them to submit their email on the same so that it can be used later in email marketing.
Demo video: You can explain details about your project in a demo video. Video content produces 1200% more shares than images and text combined. Therefore, creating a demo video to attract users can be a better marketing tool.
Software prototype: Building a prototype for software is the most complex type of MVP but is still a frequently used one.
Product design: It is the process that allows companies to launch and test their product in the market before its actual launching, with minimum features and functionality.
Piecemeal: It consists of components from multiple sources that are integrated to create a foundation for your product. For example, BetterSpace, a health care-based organisation, was badly affected at the initial of COVID 19. They were forced to provide digital services to their customers. So, by using Digital marketing and by organising virtual zoom classes, they started their digital services with almost no-investment cost. By that time, the company also started video hosting.
Wizard of Oz: It is a type of MVP, where the user thinks that he/she is interacting with an automated machine but the reality is that, behind the scene, there is a user who is doing all the things.
For example, in an AI-based gift recommender, the user thinks it’s the machine with which he/she is interacting. But behind the scenes, a human suggests it as per the input submitted by the user.
It gives a faithful representation of service. It also saves time and investment.
Why should you develop MVP using Drupal for your Startup?
Drupal is open-source CMS: Open-source is free to try. With Drupal, there is no requirement to pay license fees. If you are running out of time and have a money shortage it is the most suitable platform for landing pages, rapid development, and A/B testing. The Drupal interactive and user-friendly interface made it popular among its users.
It is the best platform to practice software development iteratively: It is the best feature that Drupal provides while building an MVP. Generally, during start-up, there comes the issue of funding, Drupal can allow you to develop software for almost free and this prototype software can be used to catch the eyes of investors.
Drupal is more than a CMS: Drupal is a CMS. But it is not only a CMS. Its wide range of features allows you to develop internet applications that will deal with a third-party system.
Open source is the need of the 21st century: Lower or no license cost, freedom to upgrade software as per the need. Its open standard collaboration development made it the perfect choice for the 21st century
It allows integration, Innovation, and Adoption: The money saved by using Drupal (and not paying any license fees) can be used further to find solutions for some other problems. Hence, this money-saving can be treated the same as investing the money. Drupal’s products can be used anywhere in the sector, which will lead to high Returns on Investment.
Need more guidance on developing MVP, we can help you: Come for a chat with us. We will work together to solve the problems. Reach out to us here.
