How to build your Minimal Viable Product

Do only the smallest amount of work to test your idea, find the perfect spot for tourists but don’t build a mansion. Rent tents instead.

Minimum ≠ Low quality

In practice, a lot of people translate “minimal” to “go cheap”. They make the common mistake of overemphasizing the “minimum” and forget about the “viable”.

A botched app, unreliable and constantly crashing doesn’t do any good.

This is well illustrated with our “tents vs mansions” example.

Customers won’t be happy if their bathroom doesn’t work.

No matter how great the mansion is, customers won’t come back. Does it mean it was a bad idea? No!

You can create a fantastic user experience on budget by renting tents. Over time, you will gather feedback and improve your services based on them.

Share your vision

There are many important aspects around a product. You will have to deal with them while building your MVP. It could be the packaging, or the way you communicate with your customers. What kind of experience do you build around your product? What’s your vision?

Having an MVP will allow you to start your journey and share your vision.

Show me the money

The number of sign-ups, views of the landing page, or likes on social media are meaningless. The only thing that matters is that someone is paying for your product.

Everyone thinks an app is fantastic until they have to open their wallet.

Building your MVP will allow you to confirm that people are actually paying for what you are offering.

Collect feedback and iterate

Congratulation! You now have customers to learn from. It is time to iterate, give them what they are asking for and scale your business.

That’s why your MVP cannot have weak foundations. You won’t be able to move fast if the code is messy, hard to update and maintain.

You will have to do the groundwork and develop the required infrastructure eventually.

Lastly, have a stellar team

The better team will always win. You need to hire smart people who understand collaboration and focus on solving problems.

Every entrepreneur is passionate about his or her idea. But time and again we see dozens of startups with the same good idea. Ideas are not enough.

Often the better team will beat companies that have raised far more money or have already been around for years.

If you are looking for advice, Specian has already helped several startups and large corporations.

Want to learn more? Check out our article From Idea to Product