MVP vs POC vs Prototype: Comparing Different Aspect Of App Development

Imagine you just got a million-dollar idea, should you directly jump to coding? The answer is NO. It is very important to follow a set of predefined steps in order to build a product and make it successful. Today, we will analyze MVP vs POC vs Prototype differences in detail.

There are multiple sets of steps defined by many organizations, but the most famous one is to first build a POC (Proof of Concept) than a prototype and finally an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

All these terms look very similar to each other, but they are quite different, and people always get confused between them.

In this article, we are going to explore each of the steps required to build a final product, understand differences between each of them, and decide on which one to apply at which stage of product development.

What is POC: Benefits and Features

POC stands for Proof of Concept. When you start building a product, it is very important to find whether your idea is well accepted by thousands of people and whether they would be willing to purchase it.

If the idea is pretty awesome but is not able to create a buzz among the customers, the idea might not be the right fit for the market.

Benefits of POC

• Helps you find the right market fit among the customers.
• Saves your time and money by giving you initial feedback.
• Helps you to complete the project evaluation.
• It helps you to get initial timely and valuable feedback among the users.
• Allows you to create a buzz among investors about the idea.

Features of POC

• It allows you to showcase your potential ideas.
• You are able to find the right fit for the market and target those customers.
• Gives you an idea about how the idea is accepted by the users.
• Connects you to a lot of people and effectively pitches your idea.
• It gives you a clear indication if you should proceed with your idea or not.

What is Prototype: Benefits and Features

As per the dictionary, a Prototype is the first version of a product from which other versions evolve.

Prototype in terms of application development is basically the content screen that can describe your idea to the world.

Those screens might not be functional, but they would allow you to collect feedback from interested users.

You can create a buzz among investors by demoing your prototype to them. It is said that an idea is worth millions if the idea is represented well.

Benefits of Prototype

• Provides you early feedback about the usability of the UI.
• Allows you to define strategic decisions towards the core product.
• Once you visualize a product, you start getting more and more ideas to improve it.
• Initial testing will show you direction and allow you to build a profitable product roadmap.
• Since you get feedback early, you can design in the initial phases. It becomes difficult to change the design at a later point of time.
• Once you have a prototype ready, you can start engaging various stakeholders who can give you feedback regarding the complexity and the alignment with the core idea.
• You can also approach investors in a better manner and move from PowerPoint slides representing the idea to the actual product.

Features of Prototype

• Gets you early feedback on the user experience of the product.
• Helps you to make design decisions and change them as you incorporate user comments.
• Allows you to build a connection with the users and understand their behavior.
• All the functionality is validated by the user.
• You can understand if you have covered all the workflows and not missed any.
• Pitch in multiple conferences to get funding.

What is MVP: Benefits and Features

MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product. It is the first version that you would release in the market.

It solves the core problem and demonstrates the need to adopt it among the users. MVP is nothing but a working prototype.

Benefits of MVP

• MVP allows you to launch a smaller product in the market with the core functionality.
• Allows you to test your hypothesis regarding the viability of the product.
• It allows you to gather user information about how much time users are spending on the application.
• Since you are not building a full-featured application, it is cost-effective.
• Allows you to go to market quickly.
• Build a user base and determine what all functions are used by the user and which all are not used.
• This lets you decide the right direction and build the strategic design around the functionality loved by people.
• You can iteratively build on the information gathered in this phase in an agile manner.

Features of MVP

• Allows you to build a stable user base.
• Collect continuous feedback directly from the application.
• Get a user persona based on the way the application is being used.
• The investment is pretty less.
• Allows you to follow the agile model of continuous development and continuous releases.

MVP vs POC vs Prototype: Comparison Table

Why choose POC?

If you are planning to use a new technology or a relatively new technology, it is recommended that you should do a proof of concept to validate if you can use the technology and it fulfills all the business needs.

Many startups come and ask us that their competitors are in the market and they do not need to do POC. But it is always recommended to complete POC since you might have similar features, but the technology used by you might be different.

However, if you are extremely sure that there would be no tech challenges and you have previously worked with them, you can skip the POC stage. But, even if one new technology is to be used in the tech stack, you should always do POC.

Why choose Prototype?

The prototype is an extremely useful stage. At this point, you start to see how the product will eventually shape up. You get newer ideas when you see the visual implementation of the application.

The prototype also allows you to gather feedback from prospective users. Any changes suggested by them can also be easily incorporated as you are still in the early phases of coding and designs.

Prototypes also are of great help to show it to investors during your pitching in various meetups and conferences. A prototype is much better to demonstrate as compared to the idea on a deck.

Why choose MVP?

MVP is the best and cheapest way to go to market quickly. All the major startups like Ola and Uber started with very basic applications in which you can book a taxi, and over some time there were iterative releases where they introduced a slew of measures.

MVP allows you to follow the agile model. You start with small releases and then keep building features as and when you need them. MVP also allows us to derive user behavior directly based on the data collected on the application.

You can also gauge from the application usage if people are liking your application or not. Also, you can lure investors as your product is live in the market and you can show your adoption trends.

What was an idea to develop POC?

One fine day, you were browsing and suddenly a million-dollar idea hit you. What should be your next steps?

The first thing you should do is to validate that the idea resonates well with other people also. You can use different mediums like SMS, Facebook, Google to validate if the people are interested in the idea.

The next thing you should do is choose the right tech stack using which would eventually help you to meet all the business goals.

If you are familiar with the tech stack, you can skip building a POC for checking the tech stack. This is an important aspect of MVP vs POC vs Prototype that you should remember.

But if you are not comfortable with any of the technology, you should always build a small POC to check if the technology chosen can satisfy all the needs.

How can a POC be converted to Prototype?

Once you have completed POC on all the important factors and determined the right tech stack, the next thing you should do is to build a prototype. You can hire an experienced XD team that can build the screens for you based on your requirements.

Once the XD screens are ready, you should start engaging with the stakeholders. You should connect with the developer team and determine the feasibility of the screens provided by XD. You should check with all the peers to determine if you are missing any basic workflow.

The next step involved should be to start interacting with the users and collect feedback from them. You should demonstrate the product and check if they can get your idea from the screens and if they can understand all the parts of it.

At the same time, you should start getting in touch with the investors and create a buzz among them to get the funding.

How can a Prototype be converted to MVP?

Once you have incorporated all the user comments and have validated all workflows, you should implement the backend code for the screens and release the product with core functionality built into it.

MVP helps you in reaching a larger audience and gauge the overall market response to the product. You can derive analytics on the amount of time a user spends on-screen and if any production bugs are present in the application.

You can also talk to investors as your product is already in the market and start getting seed funding for the product.

Benefits of Going from POC to Prototype to MVP

Test the Concept

Your idea must resonate well with the audience. If you follow the steps to build the POC, then a prototype, and finally MVP, you would end up testing your concept and seeing how users are responding to it.

It also helps to choose the right tech stack, connect with people and investors, and reach a larger audience.

Speedy development

MVP allows you to release your application only with minimal core functionalities. This allows you to release the application at a faster pace.

Once the application is being used by a lot of users, you can iteratively release more versions with additional functionalities. This saves the cost of development also.

Find out Loyal User Base

Once you are in the prototype stage, you start interacting with a lot of users and start getting feedback from them.

Once you release MVP, people will start to download and experience it. Within a period, you will start deriving insights from the usage of the application.

You can derive which users are typically downloading your application. You can also determine how much time each user is spending on the application also. This allows you to make strategic decisions for the users in upcoming releases.

Quick Feedback

You may build the screens as you think it might be correct, but those may not align with what users think of it.

Prototype stage allows you to collect feedback from users about the screens and they are able to understand all the functionality. And in this stage, you can easily incorporate those changes.

You can also get feedback directly from the application by providing a tab for feedback and bugs in the application.

Low Risk of Investment

Since you are getting feedback at an early stage, you can determine if the idea is resonating well with the other users as well.

If people feel your idea is not good, you might want to rethink it. This will save a lot of your time and costs on building applications.

MVP vs POC

POC is the first stage of the development wherein you try to figure out the target audience and see if the idea resonates well with the people.

You also check all the technology and do small experiments with them so that you are clear about their usage.

MVP, on the other hand, allows you to release your application with minimum core functionality. This allows you to build the application rapidly and at a low cost.

So, this will clear your doubt regarding MVP vs POC battle.

POC vs Prototype

Both POC and Prototype are used interchangeably but they are completely different from each other. In the POC stage, you typically talk to people and collect feedback about the idea. On the other hand, you show the working screen during the prototype stage and collect feedback.

The developers collect feedback and implement the same during the prototype stage, whereas in the POC stage, you typically discuss ideas and then try to verify if the idea is resonating well with the people.

MVP vs Prototype

The development team builds both the MVP and the prototype. But for prototype, the code is scratchy and contains bugs, whereas the MVP product is well polished, simple, and free of bugs.

Prototypes are generally created to just collect feedback and most of the time they are just screen rendered on the application to make sure all the workflows are tested.

MVP vs POC vs Prototype: How to Choose Best Approach?

Most of the time you have to pass through all the stages while building an application. But there are instances when you can skip one of the steps.

Let’s look at a different scenario.

Scenario 1: When You Haven’t Entered Validation Stage

When you have not built any of the strategies or any application screens, you are in the ideal stage. You should follow the complete lifecycle to form the best application.

There are multiple advantages of using the lifecycle:

1. Rightful validation of Idea: In POC and Prototype you connect with a lot of users and get the feedback, so you get a clear idea if people are liking your ideas or not.

2. Less Investment Risk: When you develop an application and collect feedback at the initial stages, you always have an idea and you can always change strategy

3. Faster development: Since you will release minimal functionality applications, it can be developed at a faster pace.

Scenario 2: When you have entered the idea validation stage

Once you have entered this phase, the stages will be of less help because a lot of decisions are already taken. You can selectively choose which stage you are going to implement based on the factors we are going to discuss below:

When to choose POC?

• Check if the tech stack selected serves the purpose
• Connect with investors for seed funding
• Check if the idea resonates well with the people
• Share knowledge among all the stakeholders

When to choose Prototype?

• You want to check the application usability
• Want to collect quick feedback from stakeholders
• When you have still not hired developers
• Want to show it in investors meetings to collect funding

When to choose MVP?

• Release the application to customers
• Monetize the idea
• Collect real-time feedback from application
• Need people to be aware of idea with minimum cost
• You feel your application is ready to be tested by all the users

Harikrishna Kundariya

CEO, eSparkBiz

Harikrishna Kundariya, a marketer, developer, IoT, chatbot and blockchain savvy, designer, co-founder, Director of eSparkBiz @Software Development Company where you can Hire Software Developers. His 14+ experience enables him to provide digital solutions to new start-ups based on Web app development.