How I build my minimum viable products

Step 1: Start with Market Research. At times, ideas will not fit the market needs.
Step 2: Ideate on Value Addition.
Step 3: Map Out User Flow
Step 4: Prioritize MVP Features.
Step 5: Launch MVP.
Step 6: Exercise 'B.M.L.' — Build, Measure, Learn.
Reagard: https://vehiclepeek.com/best-dash-cam-apps/

Building an audience is also essential, he recently launched a new product and it immediately took off.

That guy is such an inspiration.

This is a great writeup!

Thanks for posting this! I really enjoy coding, so all my attempts at a side project so far have taken months to build because I'm doing everything "the right way", and they usually languish once I'm done because I have no energy left to market/sell what I built.

This post inspired me to try something new, so I set myself a deadline of 6 hours to build an MVP for an idea that's been knocking around my head for a few weeks now. I started by building a landing page, used a no-code tool for one half of the backend and a custom API server for the other half.

I still caught myself going down rabbit holes (mostly when coding), and it was almost disappointing to use the no-code tool instead of building the fun stuff myself. In any case, I cut scope mercilessly and got it done in 5 hours! This would've legit taken me 1-2 months to build if I was doing everything the old way.

Here's a list of everything I cut – I'm only going to implement these things if/when I get one sale: error handling, monitoring, authentication, a frontend, and pricing tier limits. I would've built all that stuff for the MVP if I hadn't read this – you've saved me so much time!

Thanks again for posting this, I'm really enjoying this way of working so far! 🙂

For anyone who made it to the end, here's the app: https://phoneless.app

This article is great and very useful :))

Even as a software engineer I'd personally say - always start with using no code tools. And move on to coding (or hire engineers) when you've made sure you're actually building something that people need.

The minimum viable product strategy is very useful indeed. But while creating MVP, there is a thin line between creating something useful with minimum effort and investing way too much into it only to end up failing.

I read a tweet by Arvid Kahl, who spoke about doing the exact opposite- find people you want to help, see what problem they are facing and then build an MVP product. The problem with just investing and building large products is that one day you will inevitably wake up, realize that you have no one to sell them to, and go bankrupt

Great article! Execution is always the most important thing.

Am I the only one concerned about legal stuff? This already creates headache before launching that I mostly give up before starting.
Especially Europe’s Gdpr requires a lot and if you forget something you get into trouble…

I love his blog (and twitter)! His new AI Avatar site is super cool.

Building MVPs is such an individualistic thing. Super insightful to see your process. Thanks for sharing.

Great write-up. Always interesting to see how people 'actually' build.