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Building a minimum viable product (MVP) is a great way to validate your idea and prove it can be successful in your market.
And that’s especially important if you’re a startup looking to break into a competitive market.
So, how do you build an MVP? And what exactly are the benefits of building one?
In this article, we’ll discuss exactly that and give you a step-by-step guide to building a successful MVP.
Let’s dive in!
Key takeaways
Here’s what matters most if you’re building an MVP as a startup:
First, let’s cover the basics.
A minimum viable product (MVP) is a bare-bones version of your software product that includes only its essential features.
It’s the best idea validation tool that will show you if there’s genuine market demand for your app.
But, building an MVP isn’t just about putting together a working app and calling it a day.
It’s about creating a usable and appealing product that will resonate with your users and meet their needs.
source: Voypost
And you can build various types of MVPs, like:
In a nutshell, building an MVP is the best way to make sure your idea can be successful in your target market.
And that’s why it’s such a popular approach.
Now, let’s go over some of the top benefits of MVP development for startups.
Speed is one of the defining advantages startups have over traditional companies.
Developing an MVP will help you be even faster and get your product to market before your competitors.
As a startup, that should always be your main goal.
And you shouldn’t worry about if your product is perfect before launch – like LinkedIn co-founder and executive chairman, Reid Hoffman, said:
“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”
But, why exactly is being quick to market so important?
If you’re in a new and competitive market, getting to market early will help you capture a market share and start building relationships with users before anyone else.
Also, you’ll start learning from user feedback sooner which will help you refine your product faster.
And that will help you stay ahead of the competition.
Another reason you should build an MVP as a startup is that it’s a much more cost-efficient approach to software product development.
And in a more selective funding environment, where investors expect discipline and a clear path to product-market fit before they commit, cost-efficiency matters more than ever.
So, for startups, cost-efficient development is not just a good strategy but a necessity.
Building an MVP is a proven way to do just that.
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That’s because when you build an MVP, you only focus on building your product’s core features.
And that’s one of the best ways you can reduce development costs.
It will help you keep your product’s development focused and keep costs under control.
And that’s exactly what you should want.
Building an MVP as a startup is one of the best ways you can validate your idea.
Validating your idea will show you if your product can succeed in the market or if you need to pivot to another idea.
This can save you a lot of time and money if your initial idea doesn’t cut it and doesn’t achieve product-market fit.
And achieving a product-market fit is key to your product’s success.
Here’s what Davor Culjak, founder of Resonate, a user research and design company, had to say about it:
The stats prove how important product-market fit is, too.
According to CB Insights, having no market need is one of the top reasons why startups fail:
source: CB Insights
So, validating your idea and getting a product-market fit is incredibly important.
And building an MVP will help you do just that.
Some of the biggest products you use every day started as an MVP. Seeing how they did it makes the approach concrete.
The pattern is the same each time.
Each company shipped the smallest thing that could test its riskiest assumption, then built out from real demand.
We work the same way.
We built rightvybe, a cross-platform fintech MVP with payments and rewards, and shipped it in five months.
And for Decidr, a $50M-funded AI startup, we built an all-in-one business platform so the team could get to market and start learning fast.
In both cases the goal was the same: prove the idea worked with real users instead overbuilding.
Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer on how much an MVP will cost you.
That’s because the cost of MVP development depends on a number of factors, like:
For example, a fintech app MVP will be significantly more expensive than an MVP for a simple communication app.
But, depending on complexity, on average an MVP will cost you:
And there’s another major factor that will influence the cost of your MVP – quality.
Going for the cheapest option can end up costing you a lot more in the long run due to quality issues.
So, an experienced software product development company might quote you a higher initial price, but they’ll get it right from the start.
And that’s exactly what you need when building an MVP.
Here, we’ll show you how to build an MVP for your startup, step-by-step.
The first step you should take when building an MVP for your startup is researching your market.
Without market research, you won’t be able to build a successful MVP.
It will help you find out everything you need to know about your target market and help you identify your target audience.
And you need that if you want to build a successful product.
Like Philip Kotler, marketing professor and consultant, said:
“There is only one winning strategy. It is to carefully define the target market and direct a superior offering to that target market.”
If you’ve done it right, after you’ve finished market research you’ll know:
In short, market research will help you position your MVP and get to a product-market fit.
And that’s why it’s so important.
If you don’t know your users, you can’t build a product that meets their needs.
And that’s why user research is so important when building an MVP for your startup.
During user research, you’ll identify:
This will help you build an MVP that actually resonates with them and solves their problems.
So, how should you do user research?
First, you need to set clear research goals that will keep your research focused and give you the best results.
Next, you need to choose the user research methods you want to use – luckily, there’s a huge number of different research methods out there:
source: Nielsen Norman Group
Of course, you won’t use all of these methods, just ones that help you achieve the research goals you’ve set.
But, you should use a mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods to get the best results, like:
The user research you do will set the stage for the rest of your MVP’s development.
And that’s why you need to nail it from the start.
Defining its core features is the most important step when building an MVP for your startup.
And there’s a good reason for that.
According to Pendo, 80% of features in a typical software product are rarely or never used.
source: Pendo
And the point of building an MVP is to build a product with only the most essential features.
So, clearly defining your MVP’s core features is an absolute must – but, how do you do it?
First, you should come up with a list of features you might want to include and ask questions like:
This will help narrow down your initial list, but it’s just the start.
To really nail down your MVP’s core features, you should use feature prioritization methods like:
For example, here’s how the MoSCoW method works:
source: Project Cubicle
With these methods, you’ll be able to objectively evaluate and decide which potential features your MVP should have.
And that’s how you build a successful MVP.
Your MVP’s design is possibly its most important element.
A great design and user experience (UX) can mean the difference between failure and success.
The stats back that up, too.
Some research suggests a good user interface (UI) can increase conversion rates by up to 200% and studies have long linked strong UX investment to higher returns further down the line.
The exact numbers vary, but one thing is consistent – good design pays off.
But, what does the design process look like?
Traditionally, it’s done in 5 steps:
We’ve already covered how you should approach user research in detail.
But, you should keep in mind that your research results will guide the rest of your design process.
Your design has to solve your users’ pain points and meet their needs – otherwise, it won’t hit the mark.
And the first step to achieving that is creating a wireframe.
A wireframe is an initial sketch of your MVP’s UI – it can even be a simple, hand-drawn sketch.
It’s a low-cost, quick way to test out ideas and concepts before actually committing to a design.
Once you’ve wireframed your MVP, you should make a mockup – a mockup is a static representation of your MVP’s design.
And after you get feedback on your mockup, you should build a prototype.
Your prototype can be both low-fidelity and high-fidelity, here’s a breakdown of the differences between the two:
source: ProtoPie
But, you’ll need a high-fidelity prototype for the final step – usability testing.
Usability testing is where your users test out your MVP’s design and UX, which will help you catch any flaws or issues that you might have missed.
And once you’ve ironed out the issues, you can hand off your design to your engineering team and start building your MVP.
This step is where the magic happens and your MVP comes to life.
It’s key you get it right if you want a successful MVP.
So, how do you do that?
Your first step should be to write a software requirements specification (SRS) document – think of it like a blueprint that will guide your development process.
Make your software product successful with monthly insights from our own Marko Strizic.
Your SRS should cover your MVP’s functional and non-functional requirements.
Functional requirements cover what your MVP does and non-functional requirements cover how it does it.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown of both:
Next, you need to choose the right tech stack.
A tech stack is the set of technologies used to build your MVP – here’s what a typical one looks like:
Also, you need to pick the right development methodology.
When building an MVP, Agile methodologies like Scrum and Kanban are the best choice.
Scrum in particular stands out – 81% of Agile teams use Scrum or a Scrum hybrid.
And there’s a good reason for that – Scrum divides your development into mini development cycles called sprints.
This helps your team work more efficiently and iterate quickly.
And that’s exactly what you want when building your MVP.
Once you’ve finished building your MVP, your final step is launching it.
This is a make-or-break moment for your MVP and you only have one chance to do it right.
And what you need is a detailed launch plan.
Here’s how you create one:
source: Smartsheet
But, the launch is just the start – you need to be ready to iterate on your MVP.
To do that, you need to set up a feedback loop.
The purpose of a feedback loop is to continuously collect, analyze, and iterate on user feedback.
Setting it up will allow you to make the most of your users’ feedback and help you effectively iterate on your MVP.
The sooner you get to the feedback loop, the sooner you can give users what they actually want.
Marko Strizic, DECODE co-founder and CEO
Just make sure you gather feedback from multiple channels, like:
Once you’ve analyzed and iterated on the feedback, you should follow up with your users and repeat the cycle again.
And that’s how you’ll set your product up for long-term success.
AI has changed how fast you can go from idea to a working MVP, and that’s the biggest shift in startup development we’ve seen in years.
Used well, it compresses the two slowest parts of the process – design and engineering – without lowering the bar on quality.
On the design side, AI-assisted prototyping lets you turn plain descriptions into interactive prototypes and UI in no time.
You can put something clickable in front of real users in days, test the concept, and course-correct early. That’s a faster, cheaper path to the feedback you need.
On the engineering side, AI-accelerated workflows help our senior engineers move through the build far quicker.
At DECODE, this is how we cut delivery timelines by roughly half on the kind of MVP work startups bring to us.
But here’s the part that matters most: AI speeds up delivery, it doesn’t replace judgment.
Every AI-driven workflow we run is supervised by senior engineers who own the architecture, the security, and the quality. That’s what agentic-first, senior-only means in practice.
You get the speed of AI with the accountability of experienced people making the calls.
For an early-stage startup, that combination is exactly what you want – you reach the market and your first real users sooner, while spending less getting there.
A minimum viable product (MVP) is the first, bare-bones version of your product with only the essential features included.
It’s one of the best idea validation tools you can use to prove your idea can succeed in your market.
The benefits of building an MVP for startups are:
The steps you should follow to build your MVP are:
Do you have a startup with a great idea but don’t know how to start building your MVP?
Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
We can help you build your MVP from scratch, from validating your idea all the way to launch – all in under 6 months.
Our senior engineers run AI-driven workflows that cut delivery timelines roughly in half, without cutting corners on quality.
That’s how we shipped rightvybe in five months.
We’ve been building complex products since 2012, we’re ISO 27001 certified, and we’ve delivered for clients like Microsoft, AT&T, and Royal Caribbean.
If you want to learn more, check out our MVP development process and feel free to reach out!
Mario makes every project run smoothly. A firm believer that people are DECODE’s most vital resource, he naturally grew into his former role as People Operations Manager. Now, his encyclopaedic knowledge of every DECODEr’s role, and his expertise in all things tech, enables him to guide DECODE's technical vision as CTO to make sure we're always ahead of the curve. Part engineer, and seemingly part therapist, Mario is always calm under pressure, which helps to maintain the office’s stress-free vibe. In fact, sitting and thinking is his main hobby. What’s more Zen than that?
Here, we'll give you a detailed guide on MVP development for enterprises - the benefits, the challenges, and a step-by-step guide.
Here, we'll show you 6 ways you can reduce your MVP app development costs.
Here, we'll discuss how much MVP app development costs on average and the top cost factors influencing the cost
