MVPs and A/B testing: a Powerful Combination for Rapid Prototyping

When it comes to A/B testing, the ability to run tests quickly will allow you to innovate quicker, which means faster conversion optimization. This is where the concept of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) comes into play. Finding the best MVP is an art, but once you figure it out, you can significantly speed up your A/B testing process and boost your conversion rates.

The Art of Finding the Perfect MVP

A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a version of a new product (or feature) that allows you to start the learning process as quickly as possible. The challenge is in defining what this MVP should be. It's very easy to fall down the rabbit hole of trying to make a product perfect, which requires a ton of upfront work... or going too far the other way and making a change so poor that you end up not testing the product properly and undermining results. 

It's a delicate balance: make it too simple, and you risk undermining the test results; make it too complex and unnecessarily delay the testing process. The key is knowing what you want to test. This article does a great job of looking at the investigation process and finding the biggest user pain point. 

Remember that your MVP should deliver just enough to solve a core problem for your users while being straightforward enough to develop quickly and iterate upon. The goal is to strip your product down to its essential features and release it to gather valuable user feedback. This feedback is crucial for determining which features are truly necessary and which can be set aside.​ 

You can get to MVP by using A/B testing. Let’s look at how.

What Do You Want to Learn?

To develop a meaningful hypothesis, you need to examine both Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and the quantitative metrics that tell you what is happening in your product—such as conversion rates, user engagement, or retention rates. As explained in this video, when your customer insight forms the basis for your qualitative research, your MVP is much more likely to solve real-world problems and needs. 

You can identify your customers' pain points through direct feedback, surveys, interviews, and user testing. This qualitative data gives context to the quantitative data (KPIs) and helps you formulate a hypothesis that addresses specific user needs. 

Test Your Hypothesis

The right MVP allows you to test your hypotheses effectively. So start by identifying your core assumptions about what will make your product successful. 

For instance, if you're launching a new social media platform, you might hypothesise that a “like” button will increase user engagement. You can create an MVP with this feature and conduct A/B testing to compare user interactions with versions of the platform, both with and without the “like” button.​

Avoiding the MVP Pitfalls - Build Quick to Learn

While building your MVP, the objective is to learn quickly. You want to gather user data and insights to make informed decisions​, but how?

Our founding team here at ABsmartly has many ex-booking.com folks, who while there, pioneered experimentation and helped scale it across the organisation. That’s why we take tremendous pride in being a tool built for experimenters, by experimenters. They faced challenges like this and we hope they can help you in your efforts.

One particular example that comes to mind at booking.com was User Account MVP. We expected it would take a minimum of a few months to build all the infrastructure and change the product, the data, and the database schemas to support user accounts. We were also pretty sure that forcing people to create an account to make a booking would hurt the conversion rate big time. It didn't make sense to spend all this time building something that would most likely not work.

Instead, we built something very quickly on the client side only. We didn't build any infrastructure, store any data in a database, or change anything on the server side. In terms of account creation, all we asked for was the user's name, email, and password, which could be stored in their browser storage. 

People could log in and log out, and they would be greeted with their names on the website's header. However, the only functionality this would give them was to prefill their name and email when making a booking. Building the test only took a couple of days, which allowed us to start experimenting with the user interface very quickly. 

As expected, it hurt the conversion rate immensely—we had to run many iterations, and it took two or three months of consecutive experiments until we found a successful solution. It was only after that piece of work that we finally started working on the real implementation of user accounts in the backend and across all the booking.com products.

The Role of A/B Testing in MVP Development

A/B testing is a powerful tool in the MVP development process. It helps you make data-driven decisions, reduce guesswork, and ensure that any changes you make will positively impact user engagement and satisfaction​. 

Most likely you will have to iterate until you find a successful MVP.  Analyse the data collected during your MVP testing phase to understand what worked and why. This analysis should guide your next steps, whether it’s adding new features, improving existing ones, or making strategic pivots. When you find your successful MVP then you can go all in and commit all your resources to it.

By integrating MVPs and A/B testing into your rapid prototyping strategy, you can efficiently validate ideas, optimise user experiences, and ultimately build a product that meets market needs more accurately and swiftly.

ABsmartly Helps You Boost Conversion Rates

Validating the direction of your changes before committing to a full implementation is not just about speeding up the process; it's about making smart, strategic decisions that drive meaningful value to your customer and the business. By mastering the art of finding the right MVP and integrating our Group Sequential Testing framework, you can accelerate your testing cycles and boost your conversion rates.

Faster testing cycles mean you can adapt more quickly to changing market conditions and customer preferences. This agility allows you to stay ahead of competitors who may be bogged down by slower, less efficient testing and validation processes. Quick, iterative testing also empowers you to confidently make data-driven decisions so that you’re always moving in the right direction. 

Each test provides valuable insights that inform your next steps, creating a virtuous cycle of continuous learning and improvement. 

For more insights on boosting your conversion rates and mastering A/B testing, visit www.absmartly.com.