How To Save Tons Of Time & Money Launching Your Minimum Viable Product

If we were gathered around a campfire, sharing well-worn stories of tech, here’s what I would do:

I would lean into the crackling flames and tell you about minimum viable products and how Instagram started as an app for whiskey and bourbon drinkers.

“It was called Burbn!” I’d say. “The founder had no formal computer programming training!”

We’d all nod in awe that something so small and niche could become a now ubiquitous app with 2.35 billion users. 

What can we learn from Instagram’s journey from minimum viable product (location and photo sharing bourbon app) to an industry-dominating platform? 

1. Don’t try to build the enterprise solution from day one

Our clients come to us with great ideas for apps and platforms. But the public isn’t always ready for those great ideas. Or maybe they want those great ideas delivered in a slightly different format. 

That’s why we steer our clients away from starting with an enterprise solution. An enterprise solution is one that can accommodate, like, 500 million users simultaneously and - unsurprisingly - building a platform that can support that many people takes a lot of time and money.

Enterprise solutions often require binary code which can be time-consuming and costly. 

It sucks to put a ton of time and money into something that you’re not 110% sure your audience wants or needs. Friends don’t let friends spend $$$$$ without proof of concept.

2. Instead, build a minimum viable product (MVP) using tools that will allow you to stay lean on the budget

Here’s the process we recommend (and use with our clients) to create MVPs quickly and affordably: 

• Start with the design - because no matter the size of the product, design matters.
  

• Build the MVP with a low-code framework like Bubble - faster turnaround time, lower price point.
  

• Get user feedback on the MVP and then iterate based on that feedback.
  

• THEN, once you have the right product-market fit (usually 250k - 500k users) you rebuild with a programming stack that’s easier to scale - like JAMstack.

This will save you an enormous amount of time and money and allow you to iterate quickly and easily. It’s the difference between turning a speedboat and turning an oil tanker.

I go much, much deeper into this - the hows and whys of bootstrapping your tech start up and how to create a beautiful MVP that users love - in this blog post.

And if you or your company needs help designing or developing a new project. I’d love to chat! You can grab a spot on my calendar here.