The goal is clear: Build MVP of your product in 4(up to 6) weeks starting from product design and finishing with MVP product launch.
Suppose that you already validated your idea, had a bunch of customer interviews, did the market research and all of the “pre-build” stuff and now you’re ready to start building your product.
Table of Contents
M in MVP stands for minimum, not marvelous(nor magnificent)
Let’s start with the definition of MVP (I know, there are thousands of them) according to startup bible called “Lean Startup”.
“The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort or in other words building the most minimum version of their product that will still allow them to learn.“
I have encountered a lot of founders, who didn’t quite catch the “least effort” part of the MVP. Usually, the difference between the MVP and full scope was pretty insignificant – adding nice to have features and improvements as part of “post-MVP”.
When building an MVP – focus on that single problem that your customer has and which feature(s) are solving this problem. Everything else should be the “post-MVP”.
Our own example: You’re building a two-sided car marketplace for electric vehicles.
What should be included in MVP: sellers and buyers signup/login, search & filtering, car listings, car detail, contact seller user flow, seller flow for adding user vehicle, if payment integration then super simple
What shouldn’t be included in MVP: reset password, 2FA, email verification, any automation, extensive user profile, list of “favorite” cars, referral system, multilingual support, featured listings & promotions
Trust me, your reset password feature won’t validate your idea of super cool new marketplace.
Design – use the templates or AI
You have few options how to design the first version of your APP fast, like really really fast.
Are you, or do you have a designer in your team? Use Figma template.
No designer? Sure, let’s build the first iteration with AI
Use the design templates
Unless you are building something that is extremely specific (like VR based editor for modelling physics of rockets – whatever that means), there’s good chance you’ll be fine with design templates.
These templates offer hundreds/thousands of pre-made components which you can reuse. Not only that, you can also re-use bunch of existing screen templates and layouts. Forget about designing a login page – just copy existing layout, change color scheme and and that’s it.
Some tips for Figma templates:
- Untitled UI
- Ideal For: Designers seeking a flexible and extensive UI kit with a minimalistic aesthetic.
- Material Design by Google
- Ideal For: Designers looking to implement Google’s design aesthetics and guidelines.
- Ant Design System
- Ideal For: Designers working on enterprise or data-heavy applications.
- Bootstrap UI Kit
- Ideal For: Designers who want to align their designs closely with the Bootstrap framework for seamless development handoff.
Let AI do the work
AI here, AI there, AI everywhere. And also in design 🙂
There are already several tools that can significantly help you with app wireframing and design
Both of these tools work in a way that they allow users to generate mobile and web screens on only based on text prompt, but based on hand-drawn sketches or screenshots of existing apps.
Use no-code or low-code approach
If you’re a tech founder – coding is fun. And you want to have everything under control. And you don’t think no/low-code can scale and will have too much of limitations.
Well, that was the case maybe 2-3 years ago, when these platforms were not so mature.
With existing no-code and low-code tools, founders are able to build their MVP in weeks instead of months and continue building their product with no-code tech-stack. You don’t have to replace your no-code app with custom code right after MVP.
We worked with clients who built an MVP, raised pre-seed & seed round and they are still using no-code tech stack.
What is no-code?
No-code development is the way of building applications by “visual programming”. That means you don’t manually write the code (which usually takes a lot of time), but instead you are using drag-n-drop interface both on front-end and back-end to put together your UI and backend business logic.
What are the best tools to build your startup idea?
WeWeb is a no-code development platform for building front-end of your web application. It doesn’t matter if you’re building marketplace, SaaS, directory or booking/airbnb-like app. Some features that are worth highlighting:
- Can connect to any backend (you can use plenty of pre-built integrations)
- Supports code export and self-hosting
- Advanced component system that allows to re-use business logic across your entire application
- Ability to import custom-coded Vue.js components
- Front-end workflows
Xano no-code backend builder allows you to build backend of your app (web or mobile) in just few days or weeks depending on complexity of your app.
What you fin in Xano:
- Managed PostgeSQL database with nice UI interface
- No-code API builder that allow you to build fully customizable business logic
- Ability to write custom Lambda JavaScript functions
- Auto-scalable server that handles event millions of users
- Scheduled workflows
Bubble is a great tool for simple applications. It combines both – frontend & backend for your app, therefore making app development even faster. What should you know about Bubble?
- Combines front-end and back-end of your applications
- Supports front-end and backend workflows to define custom logic
- One of the largest community among no-code tools
- Marketplace with thousands of plugins
So your idea is a mobile app? Cool, forget about developing an MVP from the scratch with custom coding. FlutterFlow is the most advanced visual programming platform to built native mobile applications. One no-code platform for both iOS & Android devices. So why is FlutterFlow great tool to launch your mobile app?
- AI generator that help you with design and development of mobile screens
- Can connect to any backend and supports several pre-built connectors
- Advanced worfklow builder
- Support for offline apps
Make is an awesome tool for automation of any manual process. Without any coding experience, you can setup automations with thousands of pre-built integrations and connectors.
- UI friendly workflow-like interface to build your automation
- Data store for storing temporary data & variables
- Advanced logging and monitoring system
Hire an agency if you’re not tech founder
No-code doesn’t mean no-skills required.
If you’re technical founder, we recommend you to explore these no-code platforms, as they’ll allow you to build your idea 3-5x faster compared with traditional full-code approach.
And don’t worry, you won’t hit the limit of no-code platforms anytime soon, unless your app will become next Facebook overnight.
If you don’t have any technical background, you have two options: (well three, but third one is … not very efficient)
- Hire no-code agency: No-code agencies already built tens/hundreds of MVPs using no-code development platforms. They know the tech stack, they know what works and what doesn’t. With an agency, you can build an MVP for 15 000 $, launch it, collect feedback and work with them again. No strings attached and no need to hire permanent/internal dev team
- Find a tech co-founder: Sure, this is great option as well, but it doesn’t always make sense to have a CTO. If your product is in tech-heavy/deeptech space, then sure. CTO will be the key role. But if you’re building product which is not technically unique, it doesn’t make so much sense
- Learn a no-code tool: Yes, you can spend few months learning no-code development and then create the tool by yourself. If you have few months to spare then sure, it’s good idea – you’ll learn new skill and no need to share equity with someone else nor need to pay an agency for an MVP.
Let’s build MVP in 4 weeks
QikBuild specializes in launching product ideas in record time. Might be 4 weeks, might be less or more. All depends on what you’re trying to build.
Do you want to know how much would it cost to develop your application using no-code tech stack?
Book a short call with our CEO and we can conclude some budget ranges even after initial discovery call.
