DEFINITIONS MAKE A DIFFERENCE - M.V.P

The Inquiry phase of our IDEA development process is all about asking pertinent questions to help you explore your idea, its potential features, and your budget. This phase is necessary to begin the development process for an M.V.P. and is meant to spark your imagination, letting the possibilities of your idea explode forward!

Once you have a broader understanding of where you want to go, it is time to go through and define in precise terms the different aspects of your application and be a step closer to knowing what you want to have as an M.V.P.

While the Inquire phase is mainly for your own personal benefit, the Define phase is something that is just as beneficial for your development teams, your investors, and your audiences as it is for you. These definitions give you a clear and concise way to put your idea into words that they will understand. No more abstractions! Concrete terms only!

During the Inquiry phase, we ask you to imagine — now we need you to focus.

1. Focus on what type of person the end user will be having.

2. Create a crystal-clear image of that person and recognize their wants and needs.

3. Focus on what makes your idea unique and what is going to attract your user to it.

4. Nail down the problem your user is experiencing, and how exactly they can use your application to solve it.

When you have defined exactly who your user is, you can make sure that you are designing, building, and solving specifically for them.

While this is certainly going to influence your overall vision of your application, it is going to be invaluable for your designers, developers, and marketing teams. As handy as telepathy would be for us to have when we’re building your idea, it is impossible for us to read your mind! We need clear guidelines that give us exactly what we need in order to build exactly what you imagined.

Having these elements defined before you start developing is critical to the success of your application. These definitions will end up guiding much of the development process. It will help you and your developers decide what features are truly necessary, it will influence the way your marketers decide to promote your product, it will determine the UI and UX, and so much more. The clearer you can articulate what it is you envision, the better everyone will understand and get on board with your vision.

Once you have the first draft of your definitions, read back through it. Are the terms as explicit as they can possibly be? Are there any general words that you’ve used that can be broken down even more? Shoot for perfect clarity. When things are as particular as you can make them, look for extraneous words. Is any word unnecessary? Does any word cloud the meaning of your message? Get rid of it! Condense your definitions down to the most consolidated terms possible.

Clarity and brevity in the way you communicate your ideas are going to allow others to quickly grasp the importance of it. This will help guide development teams, excite investors, and amass users, and will make your idea as powerful to others as it is in your head!

Continue reading on:

• M.V.P. Inquire to Inspire - Questions to get the ball rolling
• A roadmap to my fist M.V.P.
• The Process of Elimination — Creating an M.V.P.