Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

[lope 0]

Hello,
I would like to have your opinion regarding the essential elements (modules or options) that must be in Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for Sale Management and POS software.

Thanks.

[Anders Melander 1782]

That depends on how you define "viable", doesn't it?

Nobody is going to be able to answer your question without additional requirements.

[lope 0]

Okay, it means a minimum functions (options) that accomplish the sale management needs. The MVP allows me to publish my software with essentials options then add more complex options. Gain Time and Money.

[Anders Melander 1782]

Yes I know what MVP means but you, your customers, or your sales department, still need to define the criteria for what a "viable" product is. You can't ask us for that because we have no stake in it and we don't know your target market.

 

If you know the needs and demands of your market there are simple methods to define a MVP but it's not a process that involves developers.

[lope 0]

as I understand, your opinion is to do this with the help of what I want to target, there is no standard options that I can add.

[Dave Novo 51]

I agree with Anders. This question is impossible to answer.

 

An MVP for a "Sale Management and POS software" for one group of products is completely different than from another group of products. i.e. an MVP for selling gumballs is a totally different ballgame from an MVP for a product cars.

 

If deciding an MVP is so simple that you can create one from asking a 1 sentence question to a group of people who know nothing about what you are doing then there would be no need for any domain experts for anything in software development. 

[FPiette 382]

I suggest you start the discussion by exposing what is your own opinion. Then we can comment on it.

[lope 0]

Hello,

Sorry for the delay, I got some troubles to post here !

Quote

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After searching it seems that the main modules for Minimum Viable Product (MVP) are:

- Supplier management.
- Purchase order management.
- Purchase management.

 

- Stock management.
- Inventory management.

 

- Customer management.
- Customer order management.
- Sales management.
 
- User management.
- Purchase and sales reports.

 

- Invoice, receipt  and label printing.

Edited September 2 by lope

[FPiette 382]

1 hour ago, lope said:

After searching it seems that the main modules for Minimum Viable Product (MVP) are:

Your list is long and are just title.

For each item in your list, please explain a little bit your own opinion, at least with 600 words each.

[Anders Melander 1782]

3 hours ago, lope said:

After searching it seems that the main modules for Minimum Viable Product (MVP) are:

I haven't worked on POS systems for almost a year, so things might have changed since then, but I seem to remember that one of the components that were kinda important to the customers was the actual Point Of Sale part... Maybe ask your AI why it left that little detail out...

[Lars Fosdal 1792]

@lope Will there be an ERP, backoffice/accounting system behind the POS solution, or is it intended to be a single software solution?

Will you need multiple stations? Multiple sign-ins? Scanners? Weights?

Many of your suggested MVP items typically belong to an ERP or backoffice solution.

There probably also are a number of existing POS solutions to be found - so unsure why anyone would start reinventing the wheel.

 

I mean, the absolute MVP is a simple till and handwritten receipts with carbon copies...

[lope 0]

Thanks everyone, I'll investigate more.
Best regards.

[Brian Evans 105]

The MVP needs to be usable by your early customers that are a subset of what you hope to eventually reach. Figure out who they are, their needs and how you can meet some of those needs with a small, limited feature set. 

[lope 0]

15 minutes ago, Brian Evans said:

The MVP needs to be usable by your early customers that are a subset of what you hope to eventually reach. Figure out who they are, their needs and how you can meet some of those needs with a small, limited feature set.  

Yes, I'll start to implant essential features listed above with basic options (needs) for each feature.

Thanks !

[Brandon Staggs 277]

I wonder how many software projects begin with designers/architects trying to come up with something they can sell into a domain in which they have almost no knowledge. 

 

I think it usually takes the force of government fiat to make such projects viable.

[David Schwartz 426]

You are facing the wrong direction in asking this question.

 

You can only get the answer to "what belongs in our MVP" by asking prospective users of your software.

 

In fact, you need to ask Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in that domain who have a deep understanding of how your prospective users work and what kinds of functions and services they need to do their jobs better than what's already available.

 

For a Corporate-level CRM package, you're going to be fighting a huge investment in their current solution, and a TON of resistance to change. You can minimize the latter by making your solution as compatible with whatever turnkey solution they might be using. But most of them are customized, and the companies pay a LOT of money in maintenance fees to keep them moving forward.

 

First, you'd have to duplicate what they've already got, then you'd have to figure out what their 3-5 year backlog of change requests is and implement the most significant of them, then get that into the hands of their Corporate IT people so far ahead of what their expectations of the current platform are that it's enough for them to go to their CIO and say, "We need to jump ship and go with this other product!" at which point they're likely to be fired.

 

Facebook did not start out as a better MySpace. But it wasn't long before they put MySpade out of business.

 

You need to find a small specific niche and start building something that's simple yet unique that solves a glaring problem, as laid out by an SME in that niche. Make it available cheaply or free and then listen to your customers and build new features they're looking for, but in a more abstract way. If you're lucky, in 10 years you'll have something that one of the elephants in the field will want to buy you out for 9 figures.

 

But asking a bunch of people who are SMEs for writing software in Dephi about what they think should go into an MVP targeted at Corporate Sales, Marketing, Support, and Management is not going to get you anywhere. Reach out to SMEs in THAT domain, and the first thing you should ask is, "What's it going to take to get a typical Corporation to adopt a new and unproven CRM product? You're not going to like their answer.

[lope 0]

That's exactly what I wanted to hear!
Thank you!

[Rollo62 536]

Ask ChatGPT, to get a good overview and strike-out what you don't need.

1. Sales Management Core

    Product Catalog Management:
        Ability to add, edit, and delete products.
        Support for categories, subcategories, and variants.
        Price management, including discounts and promotions.
    Inventory Management:
        Real-time inventory tracking.
        Stock level alerts and reordering management.
        Support for multiple warehouses or storage locations.
    Order Processing:
        Support for creating and managing sales orders.
        Integration with inventory to update stock levels automatically.
        Invoice generation and tracking.
    Customer Management:
        Basic CRM functionalities (customer profiles, purchase history).
        Ability to manage customer-specific pricing and discounts.
        Loyalty programs and reward points.

 

2. Point of Sale (POS) Core

    Sales Interface:
        User-friendly interface for processing sales quickly.
        Support for multiple payment methods (cash, credit card, mobile payments).
        Ability to handle returns, exchanges, and refunds.
    Receipt Management:
        Printing or emailing receipts.
        Customizable receipt templates.
    User Management:
        Role-based access control (cashiers, managers).
        Sales tracking by user for performance monitoring.
    Offline Mode:
        Ability to process sales offline with synchronization once reconnected.

 

3. Analytics and Reporting

    Sales Reports:
        Daily, weekly, and monthly sales reports.
        Product performance analytics.
    Inventory Reports:
        Stock movement reports.
        Alerts for low stock or overstocked items.
    Customer Reports:
        Sales by customer.
        Loyalty program reports.

 

4. Security and Compliance

    Data Encryption:
        Encrypt sensitive customer and payment data.
    Compliance:
        Ensure the software complies with local regulations (e.g., GDPR for data privacy, PCI DSS for payment security).
    Backup and Recovery:
        Regular backups and easy recovery options.

 

5. Integration and Extensibility

    Payment Gateway Integration:
        Support for major payment gateways.
    Third-Party Software Integration:
        Basic API support for integration with other systems (e.g., accounting software).
    Extension Modules:
        Allow for easy addition of new features or modules as the product evolves.

 

6. User Experience and Support

    Multi-language Support (if applicable for the target market).
    Onboarding and Training:
        Basic user tutorials or help sections.
    Customer Support:
        Mechanism for users to contact support (e.g., chat or email integration).

 

7. Deployment and Maintenance

    Cloud or On-premise Options:
        Depending on the target market, offer a cloud-based solution or an on-premise installation.
    Automatic Updates:
        Seamless update mechanism for new features and security patches.

Optional but Valuable Modules:

    Mobile POS:
        Mobile application or web interface for sales on-the-go.
    E-commerce Integration:
        Sync inventory and sales with an online store.
    Advanced CRM:
        More detailed customer insights and marketing tools.

 

[Anders Melander 1782]

9 minutes ago, Rollo62 said:

Ask ChatGPT

*facepalm*

[Sherlock 663]

If you need to ask ChatGPT, you should not start the development. Because you would clearly not be from this branch of industry. Just listing some topics is not even the tip of the iceberg...just a snowflake on top of that.

[Rollo62 536]

59 minutes ago, Sherlock said:

If you need to ask ChatGPT, you should not start the development. Because you would clearly not be from this branch of industry. Just listing some topics is not even the tip of the iceberg...just a snowflake on top of that.

Sorry, that was the least biased answer, to such an wildly general and fully open question

[David Schwartz 426]

13 hours ago, Rollo62 said:

Ask ChatGPT, to get a good overview and strike-out what you don't need.

 

IOW, use ChatGPT as an SME. That might be somewhat informative, but not a very smart approach for a start-up. TBH, if you don't already know most of this information and/or you don't have an SME involved in your project, then this is a waste of time and money because nobody is going to buy it.

 

Keep in mind that ChatGPT only looks backward. It's not going to inform you of anything users would like to see in the future, which is what you're going to need to deliver if you want to gain a foot-hold over incumbant providers who are failing to deliver on what their users have been requesting for months if not years because the exising backlog is so huge.

 

These AI systems are trained on what's known. The generative parts are not likely to take you in a direction that a creative person with decades of experience in one or more fields might propose.

 

I'm building a meditation app. There are literally thousands of them available today, and if you asked ChatGPT to describe the structure, it's easy because they're all the same: they're like an MP3 player loaded up with some pre-recorded materials. Mine is NOT THAT. ChatGPT is never going to offer an example of what MY app's design is like. Why? Because it does not exist anywhere! What's worse is when I talk to potential investors and explain everything that makes mine unique, they come back to me later and say, "Well, I had my team look into this and they said they don't see any differences between yours and the others they found."

 

What I have taken away from that is that Steve Jobs' infamous quote has a lot of merit: "Sometimes people don't know what they want until you show it to them." And even then it might take them a while to figure out it's really different.

 

Back in the 80's I'd go to a big annual trade show called COMDEX and ask phone vendors how I could get access to their SDK to write apps that run on their phones. Some said they don't do that, and some said things like "it's $50k plus I'd have to pay them a licensing fee to keep the app included on the phone", plus I'd have to update it for each new phone release. 

 

But all of them were of the opinion that they could not see a world where anybody would want to waste time developing apps to run on cell phones. Which is perhaps why all of them lost their dominance as leaders in the cell phone industry believing that Apple's approach would never succeed.

 

ChatGPT would only give you suggestions on how to build a better cell phone. It would never suggest adding apps and an app-store; focusing on the built-in camera's features; and make it so people can use it to create pro-quality videos.

 

When was the last time you saw an ad for a phone that touts a bunch of new features for the PHONE part? Today they replace what a PC in 2000 did with 40 apps and a dozen hardware accessories!