How to Define Your MVP’s Core Features: A Step-by-Step Guide for Startups

In 2025, building an MVP looks very different from just a few years ago. Founders now have access to AI-assisted tools, rapid prototyping platforms, and no-code solutions that can bring an idea to life in weeks, not months. Yet despite these advances, one core challenge remains: deciding what actually belongs in your MVP.

Many early-stage teams still make the same mistake, trying to build too much, too soon. The result? Bloated products, wasted time, and slower paths to validation. Defining your MVP’s core features isn’t just a design exercise; it’s a strategic decision that can make or break your product’s launch or set you on the path to success as an app startup. 

In this guide, we’ll break down a proven, step-by-step framework to help you define your MVP’s essential features. You’ll learn how to focus on what truly matters, validate faster, and build a foundation for long-term success without overcomplicating your first release.

What Is an MVP and Why Does It Matter?

A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the simplest version of your product that solves a real user problem while allowing you to collect feedback and validate demand. It’s not about cutting corners; it’s about building the right thing first.

Investors expect early traction, and user attention spans are shrinking, making a well-defined MVP more critical than ever.

Benefits of the MVP Approach:

• Faster Time to Market: Launch a functional version quickly and start learning from real users.
• Resource Optimization: Focus your development budget on features that truly matter.
• Data-Driven Iterations: Use early feedback to refine your roadmap, rather than guessing what to build next.

Modern founders have powerful AI tools to support early-stage validation. Platforms that track user behavior, run automated prototype tests, or analyze sentiment can quickly confirm whether an idea resonates before any code is written. However, while these tools are excellent for testing assumptions and gathering directional feedback, they’re not built for full-scale development or live user testing. Think of them as accelerators for discovery, not replacements for real-world validation or expert-led design.

Learn more about the advantages of an MVP →

5 Steps to Define Your MVP’s Core Features

1. Understand Your Target Audience and Problem

Identify the Primary Problem:

You’ve probably heard it said that if you try to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one. That’s certainly the case when it comes to your MVP. Successful MVPs solve a single clear, well-defined problem. 

Every aspect of the app must work together to address one primary issue. It will be hard to determine which MVP features to include if you can’t articulate the “why” behind your product’s existence. Before anything else, get clear on the challenge your app overcomes. 

Conduct Audience Research:

If you’re not careful, you might solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Audience research helps confirm whether the problem truly exists and offers other important insights about your intended users. A clear understanding of your users’ demographics, pain points, and needs should all inform the minimum viable features of your app.

There are several ways to conduct audience research. Use tools and techniques like: 

• Surveys & Interviews: Speak directly with potential users to uncover pain points.
• Competitor Analysis: Analyze competitors to identify unmet needs.
• Analyze User Behavior: Observe existing user behaviors through forums or social channels.

Consistent with the lean development methodology, audience research can be simple and inexpensive. You don’t necessarily need to pay for survey software or market research to uncover helpful clues about your audience's wants and needs. Cost-effective tools like social media polls, direct outreach, and free industry reports can all be useful. 

Create User Personas:

Next, develop one to three user personas that represent your target users. Each persona should provide details about your target audience. Include demographic information, like age and profession, as well as goals and challenges. 

Example: Before building its design platform, Figma interviewed designers who were frustrated by slow collaboration tools. That single insight, real-time teamwork, became its core feature and drove its early growth.

Next, develop one to three user personas that represent your target users. Each persona should provide details about your target audience. Include demographic information, like age and profession, goals, and challenges. Keep them visible throughout development to guide decisions about which features solve their problem.

2. Establish Your MVP Goals

Set Clear Objectives for the MVP:

An MVP is a stepping stone to a more polished product. Progress, however, can take many different forms. 

It's not your final product; it’s an experiment designed to test something specific. Defining clear goals will determine which features are essential for validation.

Ask yourself:

• Are you validating product-market fit?
• Are you testing demand or retention potential? 
• Are you attracting investors or early adopters?

Your decision of which objective to focus on translates directly to the minimal viable features included in your design. Launching an MVP to gain users, for example, will yield a very different result than one aiming to gather audience insights. The former might focus on a high-fidelity execution of an in-demand feature. However, an MVP designed to gather feedback might not even be an app, but perhaps a “fake door” MVP that teases functionality to gauge user interest.

Define Measurable Metrics:

An MVP should tell you whether your idea has merit and how to improve it. Setting key performance indicators (KPIs) before you launch makes the results of your MVP more actionable. Depending on your MVP, success could include: 

• Number of sign-ups: How many people indicated interest in this product or feature? 
• Feedback rate: To what extent are users offering input on their experience? 

• User retention: How many users remain engaged after 7, 14, or 30 days?

Regardless of the KPIs you choose, they should be objective and measurable. Setting KPIs lays the groundwork for data-driven decisions about future iterations, helping you decide whether your MVP is doing its job and giving investors concrete traction metrics to evaluate.

Learn more about mobile app KPIs →

Focus on Problem-Solution Fit:

Ultimately, an MVP should address the problem it set out to solve. Your MVP allows you to examine whether your solution addresses user pain points adequately. If not, consider this a chance to iterate and improve your idea.

3. Prioritize Core Features

Identify Essential Features for MVP:

Once you understand your users and goals, it’s time to decide what makes the cut. The key is restraint: only include the functionality required to test your main hypothesis. Focusing on a single key feature is often a great way to keep the MVP lean. This small scope is how some billion-dollar apps started. The Uber MVP, for example, was a simple cab booking feature for limited users in the San Francisco area.

To keep your MVP lean, try adopting the MoSCoW framework, a helpful tool for categorizing features. 

• Must-have → Essential for basic functionality (e.g., login, core workflow).
• Should-have → Adds value but isn’t critical for MVP success (e.g., profile customization).
• Could-have → Nice-to-have features that can be postponed (e.g., analytics dashboard).
• Won’t-have → Features intentionally excluded for now to maintain focus (e.g., integrations or gamification).

Segmenting possible features can simplify the decision of which to prioritize and which to save for later. The MoSCoW framework also helps avoid scope creep in the development process. 

Want a visual feature roadmap template?

Check out our → Feature Prioritization Tool to organize your MVP scope.

Consider User Flow Simplicity:

User experience (UX) design shouldn’t be an afterthought, even on an MVP. Maintain intuitive navigation to aim for a streamlined, user-friendly experience. Instead of focusing on unique or complex UI elements, focus on features contributing to a seamless journey.

4. Identify Non-Essential Features to Save Time and Resources

Define and Exclude 'Feature Bloat':

Feature bloat kills MVP momentum. Each feature adds development time, cost, and complexity, so it’s just as important to know what not to build.

To avoid “feature bloat,” define exactly which features to avoid in your MVP. Referring back to the MoSCoW framework can be helpful. Ensure your entire team understands the importance of minimizing non-essential features and the benefits of simplicity for an MVP. 

Establish a Lean Feature Set:

If your MVP is successful, there will be time in the future to add complexity and improve aesthetics. Initially, however, it’s important to prioritize simplicity. Consider how to strip down advanced functionality to its essential parts. Instead of a highly customizable interface, for example, consider using a simple layout with easy navigation to suit all users. 

Tips for Identifying Unnecessary Features:

Once you’ve narrowed down your feature list, use these tips to see if there are additional areas to simplify. 

• Does this feature solve the core problem?

  If it doesn’t directly contribute to your app’s primary goal, cut it. Every MVP feature should clearly connect to your product’s “why.”

• What are users actually asking for?

  Use early feedback to guide priorities. If testers ignore or dismiss a feature, the data’s already speaking save your budget for what excites them.

• Can your team build it efficiently?

  Talk with your developers about effort versus impact. Some ideas may look simple, but add major complexity. Prioritize features that deliver the most value for the least development cost.

Keep your first release laser-focused on proving your main hypothesis. There’s plenty of time to add enhancements once you have traction and feedback.

5. Validate Your Feature List

Conduct Early Testing:

While building an MVP is an important initial step, it’s not the first step in the iterative process. Before beginning development, consider other preliminary methods for validation. Tools like clickable prototypes, wireframes, demos, and interviews help ensure your MVP aligns with real needs, not assumptions. 

Learn More: Proof of Concept, Prototype, or MVP? Choosing the Right Step for Your Software Idea

Collect User Feedback:

You don’t have to wait to launch your MVP before you gather feedback on your intended feature list. You can validate your plan by gathering insights from users in your target audience on which features they might find most valuable or needed. At this point, and throughout the iterative process, user feedback is vital in refining the feature set. Encouraging honest thoughts from users offers a glimpse into the future and informs a prediction for how your product will perform.

Adjust Features as Needed:

Of course, feedback is only as helpful as how you apply it. Adapt your MVP features based on the input you receive. Nothing is set in stone. Features can be added, removed, or reprioritized at any point. The most successful apps remain nimble and responsive to user feedback before and after launching an MVP. 

Establish a Continuous Feedback Loop:

To encourage regular feedback collection, create systems that help you constantly improve your product. Throughout the MVP lifecycle and beyond, continuous feedback nurtures success. By soliciting regular user input, you’ll ensure your product stays aligned with changing user needs and evolves as users, the market, and any relevant trends do. 

Visual Framework: Feature Prioritization Models 

When defining your MVP’s core features, structured prioritization frameworks help founders make objective decisions, balancing user needs, business goals, and development effort. Below is a breakdown of three popular models: MoSCoW, Kano, and RICE.

How to Use These Frameworks Together? 

• Start with MoSCoW to identify non-negotiable features.
• Apply Kano to spot opportunities for user delight.
• Use RICE to validate the effort-to-impact ratio. 

Together, these models ensure that your MVP’s feature set is lean, data-informed, and user-centered, a critical combination for startups aiming to validate quickly without overbuilding.

FAQs

How many features should an MVP include?

A strong MVP usually includes only one to three core features, just enough to solve a single, meaningful problem for your users. 

How do I decide between “must-have” and “nice-to-have” features?

Start by asking a simple question: If this feature didn’t exist, would the app still deliver its core value? If the answer is “no,” it’s a must-have. If the answer is “yes,” it’s a nice-to-have; postpone it for later iterations. 

How long does it take to define and validate an MVP?

For most startups, the MVP definition and validation process takes 2–4 weeks when done efficiently. This includes defining the problem, validating assumptions, and testing an interactive prototype.

Building a Lean MVP

In the urge to build and launch, it’s easy for founders to believe that more features equal more value. In reality, simplicity is what wins early markets. The most successful MVPs focus on solving one real problem clearly, efficiently, and with room to grow.

For non-technical SaaS founders, this focus is even more crucial. Without a deep technical background, clarity in scope and validation becomes your greatest advantage helping you guide development decisions confidently and avoid costly detours.

By validating before building, founders save time, attract investors faster, and set the stage for scalable growth. Every feature added should earn its place through data and user feedback, not assumptions.

When in doubt, build less, validate more, and let your users guide the evolution of your product.

Keep in mind that an MVP isn’t the final destination. Embrace flexibility and focus on delivering a product that effectively addresses the target problem. 

Looking for a development partner to guide you through the MVP process? We can help. Schedule a free consultation with the Designli team to get started. 

Explore Designli’s Mobile App Development Services → 

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