Building an MVP on a Budget: My Success Story

A minimum viable product (MVP) is like a product’s first big test drive — Who would hesitate to bring their business idea to life with a streamlined version, designed with just the essentials of its mission? MVP confirms if your app idea holds water. Test fundamental assumptions while keeping costs low and attracting the attention of investors. Despite being simple in scope, a minimum viable product is always centered on delivering a polished, HQ experience with only the much-needed new features, setting the stage for future growth and refinement. So, let me share my story of building an MVP on a budget for my next product.

Steps Involved in Building an MVP

To launch a full-fledged product you need to start with testing your awesome idea. And, that’s exactly what an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) does! MVP is the first step to bringing your vision to life, with the most required basic features. The goal is to make an impact and gather real-world feedback. Now, all of this may be familiar and what you are looking for is, how an MVP development truly works. That’s how you have ended up on this page so, let’s dive straight into the key steps together!

Step 1: Preparing to Build an MVP

If you are all set to take the first step then simply start with the most important query, Do people need your product, why? Now to validate your points addressing this query have to be strong which is only possible if backed up by proper and thorough market research. Here, I’d like to remind you of a survey by CB Insights, as per the report of the survey, the number one reason startups fail is because of a “lack of market need”.  So dare not skip this step at the very beginning. Handle it with ease if you don’t want to end up with something no one’s looking for.

So, it’s wise to start by clarifying your vision and mission. Get clear about what exactly your app idea is trying to solve, and why does it matter? The perfect way to nail this is to uncover the heart of your product by asking yourself and your team key questions. Having done this and gained clarity, it’s time to define your ideal customers next. Try to come up with who will use your product. And, analyze their buying habits. Start to list down what problems they face. And also how will they interact with your product?

Once to cover all of these in your brainstorming phase, think about standing out. The best is always saved for the last and it’s important to create an MVP app that attracts attention. As you are after feedback and opinions to validate your app idea you need to refine your core value proposition.

What makes your product different? Why should potential customers choose you over competitors? Take a moment to analyze your competition—both direct and indirect—and figure out how to make your minimum viable product turn heads even in a crowded market. Ready to move ahead? Keep reading!

Read this article to study the top 10 inspiring minimum viable product examples.

Step 2: The MVP Development Process

The next phase is shaping your ideas into reality! Ignite your development process with a spark: define the problem your app solves. Explain your product’s value proposition in just a few sentences. Make it clear and concise as that’s your elevator pitch. Next, to figure out who your product is for, picture your ideal customer by creating a user persona. This way you can narrow down their needs, challenges, and habits. This persona will help you stay laser-focused on your audience.

Then it’s time to scope out the competition! Begin to hunt for your main competitors and understand what’s the real deal out there in the market.  Don’t stop with finding your rivals alone, proceed further to identify the gaps your MVP can fill that their product doesn’t. This detailed process of analyzing your audience and market size is the primary task of your second phase.

Only after getting this done, you can effectively map the journey. Construct a user journey map clearly illustrating the way your active users are expected to interact with your app from start to finish. While doing this stay focused on what will their first experience look like. what mvp features will keep them coming back?

Above all, it’s about priorities! Pinpoint and prioritize core features for your MVP. Repeatedly self-affirm, what are your user expectations? Be strict with concentrating only on what provides the most value. This is the only method to ensure your product offers tangible benefits and leaves users wanting more.

Step 3: Building and Testing Your MVP

Now phase 3 is the most exciting part—your MVP software development!  And here, even though it’s your Minimum Viable product even before making it available for your early users, take it for a test drive by letting your internal team use it. This allows you to work out any kinks and make sure everything runs smoothly.

Once that’s done, then introduce your MVP to a small group of early users. These users are your product’s first real validators, so gather user feedback at every step. For efficiency follow both traditional methods, like surveys and interviews, and modern tools, like heatmaps and user behavior analytics. You need to gain a complete understanding of how users engage with your product to estimate your product-market fit.

Collecting mere feedback doesn’t make things work. The magic happens only when you iterate and refine based on what your users say. Get it done with perfection, using queries like, does the MVP solve their problem? Do they want more features, or is it overwhelming? Take that feedback and use it to enhance your MVP, keeping only the most essential features needed to gauge product-market fit. And, by the end of this phase, you will have a well-tested software MVP ready to make its mark!

Step 4: Launch your MVP

On reaching this phase you’ll be super excited to see your MVP in action. Once you’ve fixed and finalized all the core features and got well informed about your market needs, that is when you have to bring your MVP to life While you are concerned about delivering a product that meets the needs of your initial customers while maintaining the high quality. Let’s get more serious with business, how will you know if it’s hitting or missing the mark? Keep an eye on the key performance indicators (KPIs) and dive into user feedback and behavior.

Scaling your development team will become inevitable as your MVP starts gaining traction. Trying to reason it out? Well, it’s to keep up with growth and drive innovation. Remember, only if users’ needs are met, they’re responding positively, and there’s a buzz around your MVP, start including interesting features. There’s no need to add bells and whistles unless they truly enhance the user experience. You need to make sure there’s clear market demand before you expand your app.

Step 5: Measuring Success

The final phase is for you to measure how well your MVP is doing. Accomplish this by tracking essential KPIs like retention rate, churn rate, and Client Lifetime Value (CLV). A good indicator of your product’s lasting value is the retention rate, this shows how many users stick around over time. Dive into user feedback and behavior to understand both current and potential value of future products.

Your goal is to achieve product market fit. This determines if your product resonates with your right target audience by meeting their true needs. With each iteration based on your user interest, you get closer to perfecting your MVP. Hit that sweet spot where your product shines by refining it often.

Simple Ways of Building an MVP on a Budget

After knowing how to build MVP, get to know the various ways to approach MVP software development. Figure out ways to collect user feedback, even before fully building your product. Let’s analyze a few basic processes you can adopt for MVP software development.

Using “No-Code” or “Low-Code” Tools

Have you ever thought of building an MVP without writing a single line of code? Create functional, minimal prototypes using no-code and low-code tools like Bubble, Kissflow, Webflow, and Adalo. These tools help you to showcase how your business idea. At the same time, these tools come in handy only if your product revolves around CRUD operations (Create, Read, Update, Delete) to build an MVP at a very low cost. Give it some thought—why not get started with a simple, cost-effective solution?

Successful MVP Example Built Using No-Code Tool

PlatoHQ is a mentoring platform developed exclusively for engineering managers. The founder initially built the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) using Bubble, a no-code platform . This approach allowed the founder to quickly launch the product and validate the idea with his early group of users. After the real time validation and getting his first customers attractions and feedbacks, he transitioned to a robust system to support scaling.

Simple Concierge MVP

Concierge MVP is the simplest way to test your idea. In this approach rather than building the software you get to manually establish the process your future product is to automate. This option is great for gathering feedback from early adopters. Let’s say you’re building a service to help manage orders— I would advise you to handle the process manually first. Why not try tracking everything with an Excel sheet? As a founder, you’ll be directly involved, in improving workflow, collecting feedback, and understanding exactly how your business model will resonate with the needs of your target audience. Sounds cool, right?

Successful MVP Example Built Using Simple Concierge MVP

Zappos founder Nick Swinmurn had the idea of launching an online store exclusively for selling shoes. Instead of building a full eCommerce system with an inventory of shoes, he took a simpler approach. He visited local shoe stores, took pictures of the shoes, and posted them on his basic online store. Whenever the user orders, he would go to the store, purchase the shoes, and then ship them to the customer. This approach helped him understand whether customers were willing to buy shoes online, validating his idea before investing in a full-scale platform.

Open-source Solutions

I don’t recommend this for your complete product development, but for sure you can choose this for the MVP development, you can buy or download any open sources like WordPress, Magento ecommerce, or anything that is related to your business idea.

This will reduce the cost, and time of your development journey. All you need to do is manage the customization to bring any open source modified to support your MVP. This can be done either by you if you are a developer or you can hire any freelancer.

Landing Page MVP

Creating a stunning landing page with all the problem statements that your idea will solve is another way of developing minimum viable products. This page should reflect your product’s value proposition and should include a contact form where they can fill in the information if they want to try your solution.

You can also add some questionnaires related to the current problem and make this optional. Getting their contact information should be the highest priority. This allows you to gauge interest and gather valuable feedback before investing in full-fledged development.

Successful MVP Example Built Using Landing Page MVP

When Drew Houston (founder of Dropbox) came up with the idea for cloud storage, he didn’t jump straight into building the full software. Instead, he put together a simple landing page that explained the concept and featured a short demo video showing how Dropbox would work. This landing page helped him to understand whether people were interested in his idea. The response was huge, with many people signing up for the waitlist and also referred to others to gain free space, which gave Houston the confidence to move forward and develop the actual product.

Smoke Test MVP

Let me share this fun and inexpensive idea of running a Smoke Test MVP! We did this for a client in Bali. He wanted to check the demand for an online bike rental service in Bali. So, we began small by creating a landing page using Wix and then ran Google ads for a week with a limited daily budget. The response of the target audience was overwhelming! Our client gathered enough insights into the user’s interest and progressed with confidence. This gave him enough push to collaborate with local bike rental agents. This approach demands the least effort for marketing. All you need to do is use Google or Facebook ads, to gauge user interest and validate your product concept. You can’t wait to give it a go right?

Wireframe MVP

Are you sure the smoke test above won’t work for your business idea? This means you have a complex idea that needs more than a single landing page or presentation to be explained. So, what you need is a Wireframe MVP. This is perfect for the more knowledgeable target audience who are more eager to find out how your solution will work. Carry out an immersive target audience research. Then start with creating the wireframe.

Think of it as a blueprint—you are creating a wireframe or a UI/UX model to show your product’s flow and functionality without any back-end development. I have personally used this method for my new project after Serpple. Collaboration with developers and an iterative process ensures my app’s concept. And once it’s done, trust me, it gives your target audience a crystal clear picture of what they’ll be getting. Before you start to map it out get a glimpse of how my minimum viable product turned out successful using this method.

How Did I Create My MVP by Spending Less Than $1000?

As you may know, my previous product, Serpple, was successfully sold. Now, I’m eager to share with you my next big idea—a Backlink Management Tool. It’s being developed precisely for Digital Marketing Link Builders. Can you guess the goal of my project? We are aiming to bring the entire link-building teams together in one place. It will be an all-in-one platform where link builders can efficiently streamline their tasks and workflows and operate as a team in a more organized way.

And, you will be surprised that even before diving into the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage with my product idea, I conducted in-depth market research. This gave me priceless insights into how teams struggle with managing their links and juggling between spreadsheet and data-managing processes nowadays. This research has helped me uncover the spots where my tool can truly make a difference, enhance productivity, and simplify the work for link builders.

Finding Right UI

Defining your target audience becomes crucial while building a project. In my case, the focus is on digital marketers. I’m specifically targeting those working in SEO (Search Engine Optimization). And, within the vast realm of SEO, my niche is link building, a crucial component often handled using tools like Google Docs or Excel sheets that demand manual operations to be carried out.

However, my product concept may sound attractive and you may think it’s quite easy to attract early adopters but it’s not so. Yes, when it comes to influencing the target audience, those who are dependent on free existing tools switching over to a paid product is not an easy task. To convince them and capture their interest, the absolute product needs to offer more valuable insights than what they’re currently using.

Bearing this in mind, I carefully planned out all features. Apart from the core functionality, I painstakingly designed every feature that would attract early adopters. At this stage, a wireframe or simple UI is my key. My goal was clear. I decided to focus only on data display, so I never bothered or spent time on flashy animations or complex designs. I’m very sure about this as I’ve done appropriate market research and observed that the audience in my target market prioritizes functionality over aesthetics.

After an adequate hunt, I found a paid SaaS admin panel on Codecanyon for just $19. It had everything I needed to jumpstart the project development. Now, you may be distracted and start to wonder: “Is it safe to buy source code from Codecanyon?” The answer is yes for piecemeal mvp. You can trust Codecanyon in certain circumstances. Especially for MVPs(minimum viable products) development, the platform is completely reliable as you can find quick, budget-friendly solutions.

Therefore, with this newly purchased UI, I began my MVP development process by defining only the features that would make my product stand out and echo with link-building marketers. Believe me when I say that the right UI, paired with the right features, has the power to convert those early adopters who are hesitant to move beyond free software and existing solutions into potential customers.

Defining All the Core Features

As I’ve mentioned before, the idea for my product started with a basic goal. I wanted my product idea to solve the difficulties my users face when it comes to link-building. Yes, the tool was designed to help them automatically monitor the links and manage them all in one place. But I didn’t stop there. I dove into Reddit and other similar forums to find out the most common challenges that link builders face these days.

After gathering many priceless insights from real users, I realized that my gut instinct was right. It will not work if my tool does the job of simply helping my users with managing and tracking links. I wanted the tool to address several other pain points as well. So, I tried to pull everything together and define them as the only essential features of my product. And, that’s how “LinkDog” was born. Link Dog, as the name suggests, is a smart tool that keeps a watchful eye on your backlinks, ensuring they’re always in check.

Developing the Wireframe UI

To work on the source code I purchased, I hired a skilled UI developer recently. And, the next thing I did was document all the requirements in detail. This way I ensured a clear and structured mvp product development. With clear screenshots of each feature from the admin panel, I’ve recorded my requirements simply and clearly in the Word doc. And, precise instructions on what to modify and what to keep intact have also been provided.

For example, if you take the dashboard, I’ve meticulously drafted all the key features, including even each feature on the menu, along with clear statements on how each page should look. So, every page of the doc was filled with forms and tables to bring out exactly what the tool is supposed to offer once fully developed. Essentially, I strongly stick with my belief that it’s a functional UI that mirrors the final product’s look and flow.

But you may tend to question, why focus only on the UI at this stage? Well, I conducted market fit research in which 80% of respondents showed a strong interest in buying the product, while the rest felt comfortable sticking to Google Sheets. My goal was to capture at least 90% of the market by presenting the target audience with features they can’t find in free tools or Excel sheets.

To bring this vision to life, I first need to design the wireframe. Only with this blueprint, I will be able to ensure that every feature is fine-tuned based on user needs and expectations. After gathering all the required insights, I formed a clear feature set including those insights in the further development of my upcoming product, “LinkDog.” The ultimate tool that’s going to keep a vigilant eye on all your backlinks so that you can dominate the SEO game.

Consult with Experts

I reached out to several experts in the same field through various social media platforms. Out of this venture, I gained one key insight: Only with a working UI demo you can capture their real interest. This is because they get attracted when they can grasp the flow and how my tool functions

And, if you feel this can be done with ppt or video explanation then you are wrong. It’s extremely tough to make them resonate with your app idea using PPTs or explanation videos because they are experts, not beginners. And most of them are already familiar with free tools and software.

However, the response was overwhelmingly positive once I approached them with our developed UI. This way with all the invaluable feedback and collective insights received from different experts, my business idea was transformed. It gave in to new dimensions when we applied real-world use cases.

Iterate on User Feedback and Finalize

To ensure our product idea resonated with our target users, we kept the wireframe updated based on their feedback as we discovered this to be important. With no other options, we took up the iterative process, incorporating feedback from our early adopters. This excited them to sign up for the beta.

Keeping the airframe updated based on the feedback of our target users was essential. Only that gave us a proper market validation of our product idea and find out if it resonates with our early adopter’s expectations. So, without any other alternative options, we simply stuck with an iterative method that let us excite our early adopters as we incorporated their suggestions, making them the early birds signing up for the beat.

It took nearly two rounds of UI updates for us to successfully integrate all the user feedback—with zero coding! This wireframe served as our minimum viable product (MVP). It allowed us to test the core idea quickly and effectively.

Typically, for us or any of our clients, we build the actual application to dive into the MVP development process. Even for Serpple, the original plan was to create the MVP through traditional development by designing the database with complete optimization and also choosing the right technical implementation for the final product. But we saved a lot of time and money by going the wireframe route.

As I employed my in-house UI developer for a couple of months, the entire wireframe MVP development cost me around $800. By taking other minor expenses into account we built a functional MVP at a cost of less than $1,000. This turned out to be a smart approach that made way to the validated learning of product concepts with minimal investment.

Start the Development Process

I shaped the wireframe to closely resemble the final product by providing detailed suggestions and customer feedback on the UI. As we transcended into the (Minimum Viable Product) MVP development process, this method proved invaluable.

The developers were able to fully grasp our concept at a glance as we presented them with a near-complete UI. This is how they were effortlessly able to deploy their expertise and craftsmanship in connecting all the features, optimizing the database design, and selecting the best technical solutions for the final product.

The product is under development and is to make a significant impact in the SEO industry soon. And, do you have a product concept and a clear understanding of your target users exactly as I have? Great! I’d be happy to arrange a call. Over a discussion, we can gain insights and bring your minimal viable product to life, likely for a lesser MVP product development cost than you expect.

Read this article on how to choose the UI design agency for startups.

How AppKodes Can Help You Build an MVP with a Low Budget?

Developing your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is not only about reducing costs or speeding up your launch but a user-centered product development approach. Moreover, it’s the only strategic method that brings you closer to what your customers expect. You get to experience this by following the steps listed below with each iteration with the best MVP software development.

• Interact and satisfy early adopters to gather valuable insights.
• Refine your product by giving importance to feedback-driven progress.
• Concentrate on quick learning and adapting to making smart adjustments along the way.

Despite all of this keep in mind, your MVP isn’t the final product but a powerful stepping stone. It’s one of your key marketing strategies to create something remarkable by testing the market trends, attracting interest, and collecting the early users feedback you need. Finally, can’t wait to bring your MVP vision to life? Then just connect with Appkodes to make complete use of our expertise. Let’s build your minimum viable product that stands out and resonates with your users’ needs!