Once you have a solid understanding of your target audience and their core problems, the next crucial step in building your MVP is feature prioritization. Not all features are created equal, and for an MVP, the goal is to deliver the absolute essential functionality that solves the primary pain point. This process helps you avoid 'feature creep,' which can derail your timeline, bloat your budget, and dilute your core value proposition.
Think of your MVP as the foundation of your house. You need the load-bearing walls, the roof, and essential plumbing – not the fancy marble countertops or the elaborate landscaping. Similarly, your MVP needs to provide the core solution, allowing you to test your assumptions in the real world and gather valuable feedback.
Here's a framework for prioritizing your features, distinguishing between the 'must-haves' and the 'nice-to-haves':
- Identify the Core Problem and Your Solution: Revisit your initial problem statement. What is the single, most critical issue your SaaS solves? Your MVP must directly address this. If your SaaS helps businesses manage social media posts, the 'must-have' is the ability to schedule and publish posts. A complex analytics dashboard might be a 'nice-to-have' for a later iteration.
- Map User Journeys for the Core Problem: Walk through the most important paths a user will take to achieve their primary goal with your product. Each step in these essential journeys represents a potential feature. For our social media example, a user journey might be: Log in -> Select social network -> Compose post -> Schedule post -> Confirm schedule.
- Apply the MoSCoW Method: This is a popular prioritization technique. It stands for:
- Must have: These are non-negotiable features. Without them, the product will not work or will not deliver its core value. They are essential for launch.
- Should have: These are important features that add significant value, but the product can still function without them for the initial launch. They should be considered high priority after the 'must-haves'.