What is the meaning of an MVP in Software Development?

I hear that question a lot - What is an MVP? The abbreviation we all know is Minimum Viable Product.

What stands behind that is another answer though. There are different explanations and most would be correct depending on the circumstances. I'll provide you my point of view and what I understand it as.

I'll cover the following points:

• What is an MVP?
• Why to reduce features for release?
• How does simplicity allow easier pivoting?
• Should you hire an agency?

What is an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

The definition would be - Up to three features per project, shipped faster to get early user feedback and possibly money (depending on the project).

There is no need to overthink the design or your logo. Those and more could be easily changed in the future. What you need to think about is the value you're providing and what niche you're targeting. It may sound simple, but most fail even at this step.

The reason they fail is because they think their project may target everyone. Well, it can't and it shouldn't (you can try, but I wouldn't suggest it). You might increase your target audience with the growth of the project, but initially, you should build for the exact people you plan on selling to. One helpful thing would be to write down the answers to two simple questions you'll get asked a lot - What does your project do? Who is it for?

It may sound easy, but I've had my hardships with some projects to answer both. It takes careful planning to not waste your time building for the wrong people and having 0 customers at the end.

Is calling it an MVP needed? No. You could just say:

• I'm building a software project
• I'm building a website
• I'm building a platform

and more. The MVP abbreviature became standard but it's not necessary at all.

Why reduce features for the initial release?

I use the term "over-delivering" when talking about startups or MVPs. It's common to want a lot of features, as your competitors have them, or because you've got a "genius" idea.

Commonly, people want to avoid exactly competitors because they're too feature-bloated, even though this is not the case why we don't want them.

You want to ship a minimal version of your project that will be helpful for your target niche. The fewer the features, the better it's thought out and the simpler the marketing.

Let's assume the following scenario, you're building a project that has the following "sections":

• Marketing
• Sales
• CRM

Each will have their own features. Is Sales needed to start promoting and releasing the Marketing part? No. Build the features for one small part of your project, ship it, and start attracting customers. You'll see what they use and need. There is a big chance that you won't even go into the Sales/CRM part as per the customer's feedback.

This is a hard concept to grasp for first-time founders but you'll understand it the more you get into the field, that if you're not VC backed you'd probably want to ship as early as possible.

How does simplicity allow easier pivoting?

What is pivoting in software building? It's the concept of changing the direction of the project you're building. For example, you're building a marketing agency website for the agricultural sector, but you see that this niche is not as good as you thought and you pivot to the construction sector.

This is a pretty simple explanation, but it is more than descriptive. 

To the main point. Building a lot of features for a market that is not yet ready, or you can't promote well enough makes it much harder to change directions. Your project is already bloated with functionalities that no one is using, hence the code is much bigger and harder to maintain and you actually want to pivot to another niche which would make it even harder to develop. It would be possible, the thing is it gets more expensive, as it needs more time, hence resources and money.

I'm always suggesting and advising my clients (and myself) to ship smaller projects, but well-written and scalable. The latter is debatable by most, but I'd prefer to have a scalable structure from the get-go instead of when I hit product-market-fit to rewrite everything from scratch. Quality is something you might ignore for a while, but long term it finds you at the worst possible time.

Having a small, but open-to-scalability project is not hard, it just needs experience and careful planning. Even if it's an MVP it still needs to be well documented before starting as you'll almost 100% see issues with the idea and change it even before writing a single line of code.

Should you hire a software agency?

The answer is not a simple yes or no. It depends on several factors and answers you might give to the following questions:

• Are you a technical person?
• Is your time better suited to market the project instead of building it?
• Are you experienced enough to avoid security problems?
• Is money a problem or a deficiency?

If all those answers are a No. Hire a software agency.

My advice would be to find experienced people. The cost might be greater than for some small indie agencies (there are good ones). In most cases, it's worth it. You don't pay only for the work done, but you pay for being in experienced hands that will build your project in a way they would've built it for themselves. Most won't.

Look for transparency. 

I've already started taking clients if you're looking for an agency.

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