MVP development: Market research and pain points

Most companies and entrepreneurs conduct some form of market research before beginning the development of their app. The reasoning behind the methodology of this research is often flawed, however – and not geared toward seeking out the kernel of truth that promotes powerful product ideation.

If the answers you’re searching for don’t lead to the proper insights, your app’s user retention will suffer. Knowing which questions to ask comes from understanding the purpose of your market research – and that’s exactly what we’re about to cover.

Speed doesn’t mean rushed

Chances are, if you’re researching strategies on how to optimize the development of your app through the creation of a MVP, you value your time – MVPs are the quickest and most efficient way to market, after all.

Despite their reputation for speed to market, however, MVP apps require ample planning, careful thought, and plenty of foresight. The app marketplace is constantly evolving, growing, and competing against ever-increasing user expectations – it’s up to you and your app to keep up with these rising standards.

Tomorrow, the next Lyft could arise. The next Google could shake things up. The market, and the technology that coexists with it, rests for no one – and neither will your users.

That’s why we wrote this blog – to give you a detailed roadmap to the strategic and creative headspace that you need to occupy in order to ensure your MVPs development is smooth, and your launch successful.

If you want to read more about MVP app development, check out our other blogs on the topic:

• How to: Build a MVP startup
• How to build a MVP iOS app
• Android or iOS – Which is the better MVP platform?
• What is an MVP? Why do you need one?

Market research means understanding the problem, not a consumer profile

First things first – the beginning of every app comes from the discovery of a consumer pain point – whether that discovery is made through your own ideation, from being confronted with the pain point in your own life, or through explorative market research – a pain point is the foundation of your app. It’s the first step in the conception of virtually every tool, product, or invention throughout all of history, in fact.

Even the most basic of tools solve a pain point. Horses helped people get to their destination faster. Wheels helped them carry more. Written language helped them keep track of the goods they traded with each other.

Pain points are the reason people bothered to tame horses and engineer the wheel. If the world was only a few miles in diameter, the wheel probably never would have seen its day in the sun. Pain points are also the reason why products phase in and out, markets evolve, and consumer expectations grow – there’s always a better solution. It’s why we all know the name Henry Ford.

Sometimes, through solving a pain point, a tangential, unexpected discovery is made – Ford might have set out to make cars, but his true legacy was the assembly line.

What do these ancient-to-early-twentieth century inventions have to do with MVP app development? They were based around solving a pain point – not tempting a specific target audience. Ford’s cars were successful because they were affordable – and they were affordable because they were made at a speed that had never been seen.

In order to be successful in terms of development, budget, and marketability, your MVP app must have the singular focus of the wheel, and the status-quo shake-up-ing of Ford’s assembly line. Inventiveness of this sort doesn’t come from understanding the buyer profile of a target market – it comes from having a true understanding of the problem they face.

Now, the wheel and the assembly line are great examples because they were so groundbreaking in the change that they brought to the world. The digital landscape (and the app marketplace especially) exist in a much more subtle ecosystem, however.

This is due to the power that is afforded to app users over any other type of consumer – a dissatisfied user is perfectly capable of finding an alternate product through Google Play or the App Store in a matter of seconds, and downloading that new app within minutes.

User ratings and reviews give consumers even more power; not only do they give potential users the ability to form an opinion of your app before downloading it, they also play a role in determining your app’s ranking on the App Store or Google Play (along with other user-based metrics such as user retention and engagement).

This problem affects a full quarter of apps – 25% of users abandon apps after one session.

This is how Lyft was able to capitalize on Uber’s success; like Ford’s assembly line, Lyft sped up the process of finding a ride by removing a single step from Uber’s process – and in doing so, won over a significant chunk of Uber’s users.

In the early days of Uber, and before Lyft forced the app to change, users were given a list of available drivers to choose from – on a surface level, this makes sense, and even seems like another way to bring added value to the user experience.

No one really cares enough, however, to compare and contrast the qualities of potential drivers, – and to Uber’s users, this was an unnecessary step in the process of getting from point A to point B.

Uber understood that people didn’t want to have to wave down taxis. Lyft understood users didn’t care who drove them – they just wanted a ride, and they wanted it now.

Your MVP app doesn’t need to invent a wheel of its own, nor does it need to reinvent it – it just needs to do one thing better than everyone else. Lyft took out the driver selection step in their app’s process, and because of this, their users were able to find a ride faster. So, users abandoned Uber in favor of Lyft.

The only way to have both the knowledge and confidence to take away previously-perceived value from a product, and then compete based upon the lack of that missing feature, is through careful analysis and understanding of the problem consumers face – not their buying behaviors.

How do you gain such intimate insight into the pain point consumers are presented with? Don’t seek out the market – seek the problem.

Put yourself in the user’s shoes

In order to understand the problem, you need to first experience the problem. How you go about this largely depends on what the problem is; if the problem is a real life situation – let’s say finding craft beer enthusiasts to trade brews with – you need to try out all of the beer trading avenues available to you.

This would entail going through the process of finding and trading beer through facebook groups, subreddits, or other social media channels, as well as going to any local beer festivals, tasting events, and brewery events – if it has to do with beer, you need to be there. Immerse yourself in the culture of craft beer.

Don’t just search for what it’s like to not have a good beer trading system – become so invested in craft beer culture that you need a better beer trading system to satiate your hobby.

Once you’ve truly experienced the pain point you’re trying to solve with your MVP app, you can begin to figure out the best solution to the problem. This is how we came up with the idea for Brew Trader.

If there’s an app that you believe has the potential to be streamlined, or could be improved by the implementation of a different feature set or business model, do the same thing – but tweak it to the digital landscape of mobile app use.

Use the app you’re going to compete against in every situation imaginable – be it location, time or day, the mood you’re in, or the people you’re with. Analyze every step in the app’s process, and make a list or scatter plot of the flow of the app.

After you have identified the parts of the competing app’s UX that work, and those that don’t, create your own flowchart using your firsthand knowledge of the users’ experience.

If you’d like more info on competitor analysis when developing a MVP, don’t fret – our MVP development: Competitive analysis and feature sets blog will be coming out soon.

Find the pain point

The solution will follow.

Knowing the crux of the problem is key to understanding what will constitute a good user experience. A strategically implemented ASO campaign, strong social media presence, and good user reviews and ratings will serve to drive your app’s growth – not your market research. When it comes to app development, the true power of market research comes from understanding the pain point of your users – not their buyer’s profile.

If you’d like more information about creating your own ASO campaign, check out our How to build a mobile app: ASO 101 blog. In the future, we’ll cover all you need to know about building a user base with your MVP app, so stay on the look out!