You’ve probably heard the terms PoC, MVP, and Scaling before. These terms are widely used in the context of transforming an idea into a (digital) solution. But what exactly are the differences between these three terms? They’re often confused, but there’s a big difference. All three are important steps in the development process. So, let's explain them with a simple analogy.
Imagine you want to organise a new music festival.
Think of a Proof of Concept as the initial step where you test the feasibility of an idea without taking big risks. You want to prove that your idea will work.
Imagine you want to organise a new festival. Your PoC would be a small music performance in a local bar to see if there’s interest in your idea. You invite a few bands to see how many people come and whether they like it. You want to see if there’s interest in your concept without immediately taking big risks or asking a big entrance fee.
Once the concept is proven, the next step is to create a Minimum Viable Product. This is the simplest version of your product that people would want to use or pay for.
When going back to the festival analogy, the MVP would be a one-day music festival in a park. You organise a one-day festival with several artists. The 2000 visitors bought a ticket to enter and there are basic facilities like toilets, a bar and a food corner. You can experiment and learn how to coördinate everything.
After the MVP is out in the world and you have received feedback, the next step is scaling. This is where you enhance the product, adding more features, improving performance, and making it robust enough to handle a larger user base.
In the scaling phase, you organise a full weekend music festival. The festival is operational with lots of bands, different food- and drink bars and multiple facilities. You learn and improve every year, based on the feedback of your 10.000 visitors. The festival is becoming a real success.
If you go all-in right away, it could go wrong. You haven't checked and couldn't adapt to feedback. Maybe there is simply no interest in the music genre, or there's already another festival. Or maybe 90% of your target group is vegan but you only provided a hot dog stand. In all of these cases, you've made significant investments without first checking with end users. And that's something you could have avoided if you’d followed the right steps.
