MVP vs. Prototype: Which Is Right for Your Project?

There are a lot of stages and complicated terms in the product development process. For users and stakeholders, it can be tricky to tell the difference between an MVP and a prototype and understand their use cases. You might have heard them used interchangeably, but they actually mean different things and different stages of the product development process. Let’s clarify the confusion and understand why a company might build a prototype or a minimum viable product.
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What Is a Prototype?

A Prototype is basically a mock-up of your product, used mainly to visualize how it will look and function. Prototypes are usually built in the early stages of software development, after validation of the idea or a Proof of Concept phase. It mainly represents the vision for the future digital product and consists of UX/UI elements like user interface, UI kit, and some colour-scheme guidelines.

Prototypes are typically built to test and validate specific designs or concepts before committing to full product development. They can vary in complexity — from simple sketches to interactive models, but they are always far from being the final product. A prototype may or may not contain any core features, and while some are created for internal use, others are tested by real users to receive feedback.

Prototypes usually are:

• Quick and inexpensive as they are created to explore ideas without spending a lot of time and money.
• Focused on design and usability because their main goal is to test the look, feel, and flow of the product.
• Not fully functional since they don’t need to work perfectly or have all the features but simply demonstrate the basic idea.

How is an MVP Different from a Prototype?

There are quite a lot of differences when comparing a minimum viable product vs a prototype. While a Prototype is mainly a solution for testing concepts and gathering feedback on the design, an MVP is a real, working version of the product that is ready to be launched and used by real users. In most cases, it’s still not a full-fledged product and contains only essential features to be tested on the target audience. These two products differ by purpose, functionality, user feedback, development stages, and risk levels.

1. As for their purpose — prototypes are used to explore ideas, test concepts, and validate assumptions in the first stages of the project. It helps identify what might work and what won't, mainly from a design and usability perspective, allowing teams to use the validation results to build an MVP later on. MVP is utilised to test the actual product in the market, thus gathering real user feedback, validating the core functionality, and learning what users truly need.
2. Regarding functionality, a prototype is not necessarily a functional app. Its goal is to represent the product visually or interactively before everything else, and it doesn't need to perform real tasks but to show some core value. Compared to the prototype, an MVP is a functional product with a minimum set of features needed to solve the core problem. People can try it out and provide their feedback.
3. In terms of user feedback, a prototype is required to gather feedback primarily from investors, stakeholders, potential users, or testers on the concept, design, or user experience. It’s more of a first reaction to the look, feel, and overall idea of the digital product. MVPs, instead, gather feedback from a real audience in a live environment. The collected data is focused on actual use, performance, and how well the product meets user needs.
4. Comparing the development stages, prototypes come earlier in the development process, often before any actual coding starts. It is also mostly for internal use of the team of developers or designers and stakeholders to help decide and plan what to build. MVP is built after initial concepts are validated by prototyping. MVP development is the first step toward a full product launch, it involves actual coding and development and is more difficult to make.
5. As for the risk level, a prototype is low risk. Since it’s used just for exploration, there’s no commitment to building the actual product yet, hence less time, budget, and resources are spent. Building MVPs represents medium risk — you are putting a basic version of the product into the market, but because it only contains one or two main features, the risk is manageable, so you can quickly learn and pivot your strategy.

When to Use a Prototype vs. an MVP?

The quickest way to decide is to understand what you want versus what you have. For example, use a prototype when:

• You need to quickly test and validate ideas or designs or check a product market fit.
• You want to visualise the product concept before committing to the lengthy development process.
• You’re in the early brainstorming or concepts phase and don’t clearly understand the scope of future work.

You should use an MVP:

• When you have a validated concept or design and are ready for user testing.
• When you want to gather real feedback and learn which changes your product needs.
• When you are ready to present a basic version of the product with some core features to the market.

Why Do You Need Both?

Although, there’s always a temptation to cut expenses and save money on one of these tools, prototypes and MVPs are both important stages in the product development journey. While prototypes help you refine your ideas and ensure that what you’re building is user-friendly and desirable, MVPs help you test its feasibility, see if your product idea has real value in the market, and monitor its performance in the hands of users. Utilising both allows you to satisfy business stakeholders and user preferences and combine their needs into one product.

Conclusion

Although MVPs and prototypes are different tools, they are equally valuable. While a prototype helps you to quickly test ideas and designs, an MVP provides feedback from real users based on their actual use of the functional product. Both of these tools have their value, and using them in combination can help you find the right idea, test your approach, and create a basic product in a short time using an iterative process. They can also decrease your risks and development costs — after all, it’s much cheaper to build something people will gladly buy and use than developing a piece of software and realising that nobody needs it. Leveraging an MVP and a prototype approach is your chance to avoid this failure and create a convenient, user-oriented product.

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