All you need

to know about MVP

development
Learn how to realize your business
idea at minimal cost and with optimal
returns
 Table of contents
Intro
Challenges of building a startup 3

An MVP as the first pillar of business idea success

Brief overview; aims and types of MVPs 5

How to build a minimum viable product

Five steps to build an MVP 8

How the lean approach can facilitate MVP development

The lean approach: definition, practices, and benefits 11

Why hire a development agency for building MVP

Benefits of hiring a development agency for building MVP 15

How much does it cost to build an MVP?

Estimates for MVP development of web
and mobile marketplaces 17

Conclusion 23

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 Challenges of building a startup
Building a startup is hard. You have to come up with a great product idea, make
the product, and invest in marketing to deliver it to market. This is the classic
startup strategy.

But today’s fast-evolving market is highly competitive. Users are tremendously

demanding. For a product to be successful, it should not only be highly functional,
easy to use, and attractive, but also bug-free and nearly flawless.

That's where a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) steps in. MVP helps entrepreneurs
reduce time to market by creating a product that has a reduced feature set, but
not quality. Basically, MVP must solve the user's problem in such a way that
customers want to pay for the product you offer. Always bear in mind MVP must
provide value for a customer. It's the first and main goal.

Top 10 reasons startups fail

Based on an analysis of 101 startup post-mortems

No market need 42%

Run out of cash 29%

Not the right team 23%

Outcompeted 19%

Pricing/cost issues 18%

Poor product 17%
Lack of business model 17%
Poor marketing 14%
Ignore customers 14%
Product mistimed 13%

Source: CB Insights

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 Startup failure rate by industry
Information
42% 63%
Construction

44% Manufacturing

53% Mining

Services
44%
Agriculture

51% Education and health

45%
Finance, insurance, and real estate
49%

Source: Small Business Trends

To seize an opportunity and start generating revenue quickly, you should release
a product really fast. Think about making an MVP before you launch a full-fledged
solution. Interested?

Find out more about a minimum viable product (MVP) and look at successful
MVPs launched by popular companies.

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1.

An MVP as the first pillar

of business idea
success
 What is a minimum viable
product?
An MVP is a product with only a basic set of features, released in order to test a new
business idea and gauge people’s reactions. The idea of an MVP is to get your
audience’s feedback before releasing a full-fledged product. MVPs can help you
avoid product failure and large capital losses.

Prototype MVP Product

The most prominent

types of MVPs
Due to the wide variety of products and services on the market, minimum viable
products can differ quite a lot.

Wizard of Oz MVP
A Wizard of Oz MVP focuses on creating ZeroCater started with a classical
the impression that your product Wizard of Oz MVP to launch his
is the real deal when in reality it’s still catering service for corporations.
under development. While your product In the very beginning, ZeroCater
seems full-featured from the outside, operated in a spreadsheet filled in
you’re behind the scenes pulling all by Arram Sabeti, CEO of ZeroCater.
the strings. This lets you work directly Now ZeroCater’s revenue has reached
with your clients and analyze their $100 million. Pretty impressive for
behaviors and preferences. a startup that started without any
technical base!

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 Concierge MVP
A concierge MVP is a great way to get Food on the Table’s founder,
to know your customers and validate Manuel Rosso, did amazing work
your business idea. Because you provide to make sure that his startup
service manually and analyze your idea was valuable for customers.
audience, this type of MVP allows you First, he found people willing to
to pivot easily if you find out that participate in his experiment. Then,
customers actually want a different he interviewed these people and
product. learned their food preferences and
budgets. After that, he manually
compiled shopping lists, selected
recipes and collected coupons from
grocery stores to deliver his Food on
the Table product. Today it's
a successful business that helps
people shop wisely and helps
grocery stores market themselves
effectively.

Piecemeal MVP
The idea of a piecemeal MVP is to use Originally, Groupon was built in
existing tools and solutions to deliver a month, using a WordPress blog,
a product or service. A piecemeal MVP with daily deals posted as blog
consists of components from multiple posts. After people bought deals,
sources that are put together to create it was necessary to generate PDF
the foundation for a product. files with coupons and send them
to the clients. Groupon used FileMaker
to generate PDF versions of coupons
and used Apple Mail to automate
their email delivery. Now Groupon
is a large marketplace that connects
customers with local retailers, travel
agencies, grocers, etc.

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2.

How to build a
minimum viable
product
 What should you do if you have an idea for a product but you aren’t sure
if you can successfully implement it? Learn how to reduce the risk by building
a minimum viable product in five steps.

Maximum amount Minimum

of learning amount of time
IDEAS spent building

LEARN BUILD

DATA PRODUCT

MEASURE

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 5 steps to develop
a successful minimum
viable product
STEP 1
Figure out what problem you’re
solving, and for whom

STEP 2
Evaluate your business idea.
Start by asking yourself two
questions to try to put yourself Analyze your competitors
in your customer’s shoes:
Conduct competitor analysis
Why do I need this product?
and analyze feedback about
How can it help me?
competitors’ products. This can
help you build an MVP for your
own product that addresses
STEP 3 the shortcomings of existing

Define the user flow solutions.

Explain the steps required

STEP 4
to reach your product’s
primary goal (buy shoes,
manage orders etc.). List and prioritize all necessary
features

Сreate a list of features for each

STEP 5 stage and prioritize them.
Highlight all the features you
Build, test, and learn
think are nice to have but not
When the product is ready, test, strictly necessary.
analyze, and improve it

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3.

How the lean approach

can facilitate MVP
development
 You can take advantage of the lean approach to build better software products
and avoid wasting valuable resources.

What does the lean

approach mean for
a startup?
The Build–Measure–Learn feedback loop is central to the lean approach. The point is
to develop a product quickly and put it into users’ hands to receive feedback. This
feedback is then analyzed to discover what features customers actually want and
to let the company see if the product has demand.

Plan it right Do it right

N
A
D
PL

O
AC

Take action Check daily to meet

E
C
T

to correct CH customer date

This approach helps companies make data-driven decisions. If there’s demand for
a product, it can be improved. Then the process is repeated to receive user feedback
on the new features. If there’s no demand for a particular product, it can be
redesigned according to the market need.

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 How the lean approach
contributes to developing
software products
These are the lean approach principles that facilitate software product development.

1. Minimum 2. A/B testing

viable product A/B testing is the practice of showing
different versions of a product to different
An MVP helps you see what changes
segments of users at the same time and
you need to make to improve your
comparing which version drives more
product. With an MVP, you can start
conversions. An A/B test allows you to
learning and adapt your product
check a hypothesis and measure which
to users’ needs as early as possible.
version of a product works best.

3. Validated 4. Pivot
learning or persevere
The process of validating product When you test a concept, there are two
-related ideas is iterative, where each possible outcomes:
iteration tests one idea. Results - You find there’s a need for the product. In this

are measured by metrics. Validated case, it makes sense to persevere with the same

learning happens when ideas idea and keep on improving it.

and features are improved and there’s - You discover that a particular product isn’t as

a positive change in metrics. desirable as expected. This means you need

to pivot to test another hypothesis, repeating

the Build–Measure–Learn loop.

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 Why use the lean startup
methodology in product
development?

Understand if there’s Release your product

demand for your product faster

Get feedback in order Avoid building unnecessary

to improve your product, features and wasting
meet your target customers’ resources
needs, and maintain loyalty

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4.

Why hire
a development agency
for building MVP
 Startup ideas are like iron: one should strike them while they’re hot. So, building
an MVP fast and within a budget is crucial to startup's success. That’s exactly
what you need a development agency for!

1. Flexible and 2. Business idea

scalable team validation
A full-stack development agency Agencies often work with startups
has a large pool of talent and can and have a lot of experience building
form a team specifically for a certain businesses from scratch.
project. Thus, you’ll get a team with They can provide you with valuable
all the required specialists, which insights on startup development and
you can easily expand when you guide you from idea validation
need it and which can develop your to launching a full-fledged product
project from top to bottom. into the market.

3. Streamlined 4. Business
management -oriented mindset
processes In comparison with freelancers, who
usually don’t participate in the whole
A software development company product development cycle, software
streamlines communication development companies have a
and management by assigning business-oriented mindset and are
a project manager to the team to focused on building long-term
keep all stakeholders on the same relationships with their customers.
page and ensure that communication Agencies not only understand the end
is maintained between all participants. consumers’ needs but also help their
Development companies create business customers develop and sell
workflows that allow project managers high relevant solutions to those end
to deliver the right information to the consumers.
right people, avoid misunderstandings
and delays, and manage risks.

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5.

How much does it cost

to build an MVP?
 The cost of building an MVP differs depending on the product. We offer to consider
examples of four different products to get the general idea of MVP price formation.

Estimate for a mobile fashion app

like Poshmark
Core features

System Account Profile Inventory

authorization management management management

Shipping Payments Listings Finding

settings items

Order
management

Development time
Project management - 166 h HTML/CSS development - 268 h

Business analysis - 308 h Frontend development (iOS/Android) - 585 h

UI/UX design - 263 h Backend development - 734 h

Quality assurance - 169 h

Total hours - 2, 493 Total price - $99, 720

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 Estimate for a mobile service
marketplace app like UberEats
Core features

Registration Profile Restaurant Order

management searching management
and filtering

Payments Delivery options

Development time
Project management - 330 h Quality assurance - 560 h

Business analysis - 446 h HTML/CSS development - 788 h

UX design - 565 h Frontend development (iOS/Android) - 1, 180 h

UI design - 725 h Backend development - 1, 850 h

Total hours - 6, 444 Total price - $257, 760

How to save resources developing mobile apps

If you want to build apps for both iOS and Android simultaneously and save your
budget, you can choose the React Native technology that allows you to create
one app that works seamlessly on both iOS and Android platforms.

The RubyGarage team has lots of experience in developing applications built

on React Native. You can find out more about the benefits of React Native
development and our services here.

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 Estimate for a product
marketplace like eBay
Core features

System Inventory Admin panel Order

authorization management management

Product search Product view Shopping cart Chat

Payments Review Analytics

and ratings

Development time
Project management - 335 h Quality assurance - 562 h

Business analysis - 446 h HTML/CSS development - 788 h

UX design - 564 h Frontend development (iOS/Android) - 1, 175 h

UI design - 729 h Backend development - 1, 842 h

Total hours - 6, 441 Total price - $257, 640

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 Estimate for a service
marketplace like Airbnb
Core features

System Account Profile Payments

authorization management management

Notifications Messaging Wishlist Properties

Booking Customer Multinationalization Review

support and ratings

Development time
Project management - 256 h Quality assurance - 358 h

Business analysis - 305 h HTML/CSS development - 521 h

UX design - 412 h Frontend development (iOS/Android) - 1, 242 h

UI design - 273 h Backend development - 1, 511 h

Total hours - 4, 878 Total price - $195, 120

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 How to reduce
the cost for your MVP
web development?
To help you cut down the expenses and lauch your product with the minimum time
to market, we created a white-label solution.

Our white-label solution can meet the specific needs of your business by ensuring
unique UI design and any other custom functionality. It has all the necessary
feature modules to build a marketplace for product sales, booking, and consulting
services.

At the same time, our solution allows you to reduce expenses and create a
marketplace much cheaper — starting with $40,000 for an MVP.

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 Conclusion
A successful startup requires an MVP. Would-be businesses build MVPs in order to
launch a product with minimal investment, hedge against losses, and validate their
startup ideas. Prosperous companies like Dropbox, Zappos, OpenTable, and Uber
have started as MVPs.

These examples prove that you should first care about your customers and make sure
they want your product; technical details matter only after your product is in demand
by a large audience.

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 About RubyGarage
RubyGarage is a top-of-the-line software development and consulting company
with more than eight years of experience developing successful web and mobile
software.

The RubyGarage team develops e-commerce and retail software solutions for global
e-commerce brands, online marketplaces, and startups. RubyGarage clients include
many companies recognized in their industries that work with renowned brands
including:

Get in touch and tell about your business idea!

rubygarage.org

Sales Manager +1 (929) 999-19-70

[email protected]
+44 (208) 068-49-88

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