Eval­u­ate data from MVP tests and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly gain insights

Eval­u­at­ing the data from your MVP tests is essen­tial in order to make well-found­ed deci­sions for the fur­ther devel­op­ment of your solu­tion.

1. sort your inter­view data and form clus­ters

Col­lect the data by Sum­ma­rize all obser­va­tions, notes and record­ings. Struc­ture all data by orga­niz­ing it accord­ing to test tasks or areas of the MVP. Pay par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to notice­able pat­terns and trends: Which prob­lems occur repeat­ed­ly? Which aspects were par­tic­u­lar­ly pos­i­tive­ly empha­sized? By rec­og­niz­ing these pat­terns, you can pri­or­i­tize the key points that need to be improved.

2. ana­lyze your col­lect­ed data

Pri­or­i­tize the find­ings by Eval­u­ate the sever­i­ty of the prob­lems iden­ti­fied. Focus on prob­lems that sev­er­al par­tic­i­pants had. Quan­ti­fy the results by cal­cu­lat­ing suc­cess rates for spe­cif­ic tasks and mea­sur­ing time spent on dif­fer­ent inter­ac­tions.

Ana­lyze qual­i­ta­tive feed­back by con­tex­tu­al­iz­ing par­tic­i­pants’ ver­bal com­ments and iden­ti­fy­ing key words and themes.

2. visu­al­ize your results

To present your results clear­ly, use dia­grams or heat maps to visu­al­ize prob­lem areas. You can use user flow dia­grams to illus­trate the cus­tomer jour­ney of your MVP . This shows the typ­i­cal paths tak­en by users — from start­ing points to actions and des­ti­na­tions. You can use this jour­ney to iden­ti­fy where par­tic­i­pants encounter prob­lems and which areas should be improved.

Val­i­da­tion of the financ­ing strat­e­gy: con­vinc­ing investors

Your financ­ing strat­e­gy is not fixed, but must be con­tin­u­ous­ly adapt­ed through reg­u­lar feed­back and well-found­ed analy­ses.

1. eval­u­ates investor feed­back

An impor­tant aspect is the eval­u­a­tion of feed­back from investors. Cat­e­go­rize the feed­back accord­ing to top­ics such as growth fore­casts, risks or val­u­a­tion and look for recur­ring con­cerns. Com­pare the feed­back from dif­fer­ent investors to iden­ti­fy the most com­mon points of crit­i­cism and pri­or­i­tize adjust­ments accord­ing to the rel­e­vance of the feed­back.

2. learns from the cash flow analy­sis or finan­cial key fig­ures

A detailed cash flow analy­sis shows you whether your financ­ing strat­e­gy is work­ing. Com­pare the oper­at­ing cash flow and oth­er key fig­ures such as EBIT or EBIT­DA with your fore­casts and indus­try aver­ages. Iden­ti­fy devi­a­tions and their caus­es in order to make tar­get­ed opti­miza­tions. Also ana­lyze how your financ­ing strat­e­gy affects your liq­uid­i­ty and growth.

3. adapt your strat­e­gy flex­i­bly

Adjust your finan­cial tar­gets and fore­casts based on your find­ings. Revise your finan­cial fore­casts to be more real­is­tic. Devel­op alter­na­tive sce­nar­ios for dif­fer­ent mar­ket con­di­tions and con­sid­er whether addi­tion­al sources of fund­ing should be con­sid­ered.

4. ensures con­tin­u­ous mon­i­tor­ing

Imple­ment a reg­u­lar report­ing sys­tem to keep an eye on your key finan­cial fig­ures and progress. Set thresh­olds that sig­nal the need for action and car­ry out reg­u­lar reviews to adapt your financ­ing strat­e­gy to new chal­lenges.

You can use these meth­ods and tools to con­tin­u­ous­ly improve your MVP, your financ­ing strat­e­gy and your busi­ness mod­el. In this way, you cre­ate the basis for sus­tain­able growth and long-term impact.

Next chap­ter: Growth phase

Ide­al­ly, you have now val­i­dat­ed your MVP, the impact and mar­ket poten­tial of your start­up and your financ­ing mod­el - and you have ensured that all the nec­es­sary resources are avail­able. This means …

• You have suc­cess­ful­ly test­ed your MVP with pilot cus­tomers and received pos­i­tive feed­back.
• you have devel­oped impact indi­ca­tors and can mea­sure the impact at out­put and out­come lev­el.
• There are clear signs that a mar­ket exists for your solu­tion and that it is scal­able.
• There is a sol­id financ­ing strat­e­gy, includ­ing ini­tial con­tacts with donors or pilot cus­tomers.
• the nec­es­sary resources and skills for growth and estab­lish­ment are avail­able or being planned (team, financ­ing, infra­struc­ture).

If all this applies, you can start your impact start­up with the next chap­ter into the growth phase.

If not, no prob­lem! The best thing to do is to return to the chap­ter “Devel­op­ing an MVP: Test­ing solu­tions for impact start-ups under real con­di­tions” again.