Mvp in software development and how to build it

What is an MVP?

Do you remember the last time you felt tired on your way to the next meeting to pitch your idea and lo and behold a coffee shop pops out of nowhere? Well in this situation chances are you went in got a coffee and an energy boost. The coffee shop solved your problem, you were not tired anymore, and you probably also got a take away coffee and you were on time to your meeting.

The coffee shop is the product in this case, the grand idea that you might have right now, the solution that will solve your target audience’s pain points. But what is an MVP? 

To understand better what an MVP is, let’s break down the coffee shop scenario. The grand vision is to have a Global Scale Coffee Shop Franchise selling golden coated roasted coffee beans. For that you will probably need a really big sum of money to start and you will have competitors to consider, marketing, hiring, cash flow, budgets, legal and all the bells and whistles that come with setting up such a business. But what if there was a way to break the grand vision into smaller achievable goals, test your idea, validate your idea, and also not have to raise a quadrillion dollars for it? 

That’s your MVP. The minimum viable product that you can launch on the market to test, validate and iterate on your road to building the Global Scale Coffee Shop Franchise. 

More specifically, consider our Golden Coated Roasted coffee starting out as a small coffee truck that pops up in the center of the financial district of your town promising best quality coffee, golden coated and made so fast you’ll be in time for your next meeting with an extra 10 minutes to spare. Already this sounds more achievable than a Global Scale Operation and you already have your unique selling proposition, a target audience to gather feedback from and with minimal investment you can set up shop, validate the Golden Beans Coffee Shop idea and move onto the next stage. 

Why should you build an MVP?

A coffee bean plant seed without being planted in soil will never grow and develop into a plant that delivers the beans which make the most amazing coffee. Similarly, ideas will remain ideas without something tangible. And this is where an MVP will help. Consider an MVP as being the Coffee Bean Plant, once planted ( equivalent to launching a landing page announcing your product ) it can then grow into a plant ( equivalent to the software development process ) that can then provide coffee beans for your business to sell and grow ( equivalent to launching your MVP on the market ).

This example might be a bit extreme, however having an MVP can truly help you:

Validate your idea: after launching your MVP you should be able to validate that your initial assumptions were correct and have the potential that you thought it did

Minimize the risk: When building a business, you have multiple constraints( budget, resources, time ) and the sooner you can validate your concept the sooner you can pivot, iterate and adjust to the market needs. This is where building an MVP will help – an MVP should be built with the business constraints in mind and should provide enough feedback for you to be able to make decisions on your next move.

Iterate quickly: By building an MVP, you can use the insights gained from your early adopters before you invest the money into the full blown product.

How do you define an MVP?

When building an MVP there are a lot of thoughts out there and a ton of valuable information and advice. From our experience it pretty much crumbles down to a few things.

Focus on Core features when building an MVP

Looking back at the coffee shop example, the grand vision is to establish a Global Scale Coffee Shop Franchise selling golden coated roasted coffee beans. At its core this business sells coffee, golden roasted coffee beans. That is the core feature here. Our MVP needs to provide to your target audience golden roasted coffee beans.

This might be an extreme example, and might now illustrate more complex ideas however the process is still the same, identify the golden roasted coffee bean feature of your idea and focus on building and delivering that. You might be confused now and might be asking yourself: “Sure, but how do I identify the Golden Roasted Coffee Bean of my idea?”. You can definitely start by:

Clearly stating the problem you are solving for your target audience ( in our example the problem our Golden Roasted Coffee Beans is solving is the lack of energy a tired person has without coffee – with an extra bonus that our Golden Roasted Coffee Beans will give them Glamourous Energy throughout the day ) 

What is the minimum functionality I need to solve my target audience’s problem? ( in our example, we need to source the coffee, find someone to roast them, find someone to gold coat them, lease a small tuk tuk in which we can set up a coffee machine with a grinder and make sure we go to the financial district and open shop every day between 11:30AM and 1:00 PM – easy peasy )

How will I deliver my product? ( in our example, we are using a tuk tuk with a coffee machine in it – which is the best example because in your mind you might think that it will look horrible, and people might not even approach us – and you might be right which is why focusing on Value First is a good approach here )

Build a Value First MVP

The tuk tuk with a coffee machine and a coffee grinder inside, might have painted a weird image in your mind right now. And that’s why focusing on the value you provide is more important than how it looks, if your coffee delivers the intended outcome chances are you’ll get recurring customers, and you know what… there is an even higher chance they’ll say: “I can’t wait for the tuk tuk coffee guy to show up today”. Similarly when building an MVP, if you focus on the core functionality that will solve the user’s problem, you can deliver value from day 1. 

Let’s continue with our golden roasted coffee beans – if those beans are of some strong Robusta strain and pack a punch, you will definitely solve the problem of people being tired before meetings and especially after lunch ( that’s precisely why we bring out our tuk tuk between 11:30AM and 1:00PM ). And if you also ask people to complete a survey each day you’ll get feedback on how good and Glamorously Energizing your coffee is ( and this survey can be in the most basic of forms using Typeform as your medium and in people’s free time ). 

Pricing Strategy

All is well and we all need coffee, but can we make it such that the price will sustain our business? 

I’ve seen MVPs launched without a pricing strategy – and that can be an option, if you have a few $100k lying around to burn through.

Now on the off chance you don’t have $100k lying around, then this point is crucial. Unfortunately the harsh reality is that a business without cashflow is not really sustainable, there are bills to pay. And this is why it’s important to have a pricing strategy, validate early on that people will buy whatever is that you’re selling. Otherwise you might have a bit of a bottleneck.

Building the MVP is no different – let’s assume you have the next big SaaS idea that will revolutionize the world. Now as happy as we would be building that for you here at MVPers, there are some costs involved. Development costs ( you have to lease that tuk tuk from somewhere, source the coffee, roast it, golden plate it, buy the coffee machine and roaster and spend time in that financial square ) – infrastructure costs ( running the tuk tuk takes gas, and powering the coffee machine and grinder requires water and electricity ) – marketing costs ( showing up in a tuk tuk might be enough to set you apart – not sure how many other small coffee shops do that – but on the off chance it doesn’t you might want something that tells people: GLAMOROUS ENERGIZING GOLDEN COFFEE RIGHT HERE and of course on a constraint budget as well ).

Plan for expansion

Please, promise me one thing. Regardless of how hard it gets along the way, you won’t lose that big vision. We want to get to the Global Scale Coffee Shop Franchise, don’t forget. And you should plan all the small steps that will get you there. 

First it’s the tuk tuk in the financial district, then it can be another tuk tuk in the most crowded tourist are – now you have 2 tuk tuks, then a 3rd and a 4th – then before you know it you’ll have enough cashflow to rent the first location in your home town, then the second location – then you open shop in another town and before you know it you reach the entire country and then the world.

While building don’t lose sight of the end goal, be patient and one step ahead in planning. Don’t worry if you need to adjust course along the way, maybe even the grand vision might change according to the market, just don’t lose sense of it.

How to Build an MVP

First thing is first, accept you have constraints. The biggest one being time with second place held by budget. At MVPers we are of the opinion that you should optimise for these 2 key constraints. 

Easier said than done, but exactly how do you optimise for these 2 constraints? 

Well from our experience focusing on the following ideas will definitely help:

Plan the building of the MVP

After you’ve done the ground work and you know what the core feature of your product is, plan the implementation of your idea and stick to the plan. This is where a specialist comes in very handy. There are a lot of moving parts when building software, and an experienced person will be able to take your grand idea and target state, break it down into smaller deliverables and plot a course to market launch of your MVP.

But what if a new opportunity comes up, what if the initial plan doesn’t work, what if the core feature isn’t enough, what if … These are the types of questions that will most likely slow you down, the answer to all of these questions is: “You will find out after you launch, and you might be wrong, but you might also be surprised”. A common mistake in building an MVP is to try and deliver a polished product with the constraints you have, and typically this leads to a poor product being delivered, context switching too much, course adjustments too early without proper evidence as to why. As someone in an Instagram post said: “The only way to stop the demons chasing you is to turn around and face them”.

Uncertainty is part of the job description of an Entrepreneur, which is why at MVPers we are big advocates of bridging this gap and focus on time to market. The sooner your product is out there, the faster you get feedback, learn, iterate and move forward or adjust course.

Execute

You planned the necessary steps to build the MVP, now it’s time to get your hands dirty. Execution is crucial after clearly defining the requirements and having a plan. Stick to the plan, focus on time to market, stay away as much as possible from steering the ship hard left too soon without a good motive to do so. 

When developing a software MVP, a team of driven developers is key in this phase. Someone who likes building software from scratch, someone who can understand your idea and business model and can get to coding right away. 

Choosing the right people to develop the software for your MVP is important and you should first make sure that they align with your values, then make sure they can deliver and whatever you do, make sure you set key touchpoints with them so you get feedback on progress.

Launch

The moment of truth. Just like the tuk tuk in the financial square, your launch should be isolated enough that you get valuable feedback and have a bit of knowledge of who is using the MVP you developed. Remember it’s an MVP, not the full blown product. 

While waiting for the launch, concentrate on building an audience, however you see fit – marketing, network, mailing lists, social media – whatever you think it’s appropriate for your idea. 

Marketing

Marketing could help you in your early stages to build an audience, see interest of your target audience and measure the interest of your audience. 

MVP Software Development — This Is Where We Come In

At MVPers we understand that each idea is unique, with its set of challenges and characteristics and we can help turn those ideas into a software product. 

After establishing the plan, we dive right in, with full focus on time-to-market. We’ll make sure we keep you up to date every step of the way so you keep control at every stage of the build.

We will bring all our expertise to the table to make sure all the custom software development is done according to your idea and the features of your MVP software product.

We’d be happy to share our expertise in MVP building in such a way that you can focus on your business and not have to worry about how your product will get to market.

We understand how hard it is to find passionate developers and business partners and that’s what we strive to be: A valuable partner and asset for your business and help every step of the way in your journey.