Product

From Concept to MVP in  5 Simple Steps

November 14, 2023

Tomáš Ivan

Head of Product

Imagine a world where you can test your ideas safely and without risk – that's the power of MVP development. In this article, we'll walk you through the steps of creating a minimum viable product, highlighting its practicality and potential to turn your innovative concepts into reality.

But first things first, no matter how brilliant your idea is, comprehensive market research is a crucial starting point. Once you've identified the core idea behind your product, MVP software development comes into play, allowing you to gather valuable feedback from your target audience.

Accelerating Product Launch with MVP

Within just a few months, you can launch your product into the market and obtain feedback from early users. The feedback from your target audience wields a direct influence on the product's evolution and future direction.

MVP app development streamlines the process of creating a solution and launching it into the market. Rather than committing all your resources upfront to build a fully developed product, you can construct an MVP and progressively invest in its development as needed. This approach minimizes risks and curtails costs since investments are made judiciously.

Efficiency and Cost Savings

The step-by-step approach of MVP software development significantly minimizes the need for extensive revisions and complete feature overhauls. This means you won't suddenly encounter a situation where the development has veered off track, requiring a comprehensive rebuild of components and features.

MVP software development enables you to create a product without the need to assemble a massive development team. Fewer resources translate into reduced expenses and enhanced cost-efficiency.

Navigating MVP Development

MVP product development closely aligns with standard software product development, albeit with a faster pace and specific objectives. Let's take a closer look at MVP development through these five important steps.

Step 1: Identifying the Key Problem

To start, let's identify the core problem your product aims to solve. Validating your idea before diving into development is key to resource conservation and confirming the demand for your solution. While industry expertise is valuable, it's equally important to verify the existence of the problem you aim to address. Write the problem down and use your MVP to assess its viability.

Step 2: Discovering Market Insights

Next up, we'll dive into market analysis. Comprehensive market research, competitor analysis, defining your target audience, and assessing market size are critical steps. One common reason for startup failures is running out of funds. Therefore, it's essential to ensure there's a genuine demand for your product and a sufficient number of potential customers willing to invest in it.

Step 3: Defining the Value Proposition

For a successful MVP, it's essential to understand the value your new product offers its users and how it can enhance their lives. This understanding forms the basis for your app's value proposition. Similarly, it's crucial to outline the core assumptions that drive your product. As the MVP concept suggests, your product should provide value in its most basic form. Begin by identifying your target users and build the MVP around their essential needs.

Step 4: Crafting a Prototype for Your Vision

Imagine the creation of a prototype and an MVP as a superhero team-up. The prototype assumes the role of the visionary hero, aiding in the visualization of design and functionality with all the innovative gadgets and capes. Meanwhile, the MVP serves as the practical sidekick, a stripped-down product version designed for specific tasks. Together, they form an unstoppable duo.

The prototype showcases your grand vision and gathers early feedback, while the MVP refines the product using those insights. Then, the MVP steps in, harnessing these insights to refine your product, much like a superhero and sidekick turning your idea into a reality, one step at a time.

Step 5: Constructing the Feature Set

Crafting a product that caters to people's needs hinges on their active participation. In MVP product development, the importance of collecting feedback cannot be overstated, and initiating this process as early as possible is crucial. Begin by gathering insights from potential customers to compile a list of essential features for your MVP.

To streamline the development process, categorize the remaining MVP features into high, medium, and low-priority segments, organizing them in the product backlog according to their priority. This feedback-driven roadmap should serve as your guiding light throughout development. It's important to note that the research stage should continue in parallel with MVP development, ensuring a dynamic and informed process.

Finding the Perfect Partner

Having covered the initial steps, let's now explore development partnerships. MVP development offers several paths, each with distinct advantages and disadvantages.

In-house MVP Development: If you're skilled and resourceful, you may choose to develop an MVP independently. Keep in mind that this path entails shouldering all development, management, technical, and organizational responsibilities, but it can result in significant cost savings.
Freelancers: Another viable option is assembling a team of experienced MVP developers. Costs depend on the country of choice and your hiring model – project-based or hourly rates. While it may involve a higher investment and require time to find the right talent, engaging skilled specialists can significantly enhance your chances of success. It's important to acknowledge that there may be variations in the quality of work.
Software Development Agency: Consider this option the pinnacle of reliability. A software development agency, while potentially more costly, provides an all-inclusive solution for your product's development. Project managers adeptly translate your vision to the development team. At Cleevio, we specialize in product development, offering you a dedicated team of experts in testing, design, UX, and project management for a streamlined and efficient process.

There are various ways to go about it, and the choice is yours. You don't have to go it alone – turn your idea into a winning reality with Cleevio at your service. Take the first step towards your success and get in touch with us today!

What’s next?

Let’s continue the conversation.

3D representation of discovery track, glass cubes and a metal arrow that spins around them.

Stay in touch

Thank you! We will be in touch.

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Product

1 min read

The Bootstrap vs. Raise Dilemma: A Startup Founder's Perspective

Lukáš Stibor

Co-Founder

Having raised over $10M+ in the past and engaged in countless meetings with VCs and angel investors, I have recently transitioned to the bootstrapping route for my latest ventures. Why? Because it makes you think five times before spending every $10,000 and forces you to find new ways to progress with a limited budget.

The Freedom of Bootstrapping

Bootstrapping, the practice of funding a business with personal savings and revenue, provides entrepreneurs with a rare degree of autonomy. Without external investors to answer to, founders retain full control over decision-making processes, strategic direction, and the company's vision.

Moreover, every dollar becomes precious, and founders must carefully consider every expenditure to ensure optimal resource allocation. When you are personally invested in every aspect of the business, from product development to marketing strategies, you become acutely aware of the value of each dollar spent.

Heightened awareness fosters creativity and resourcefulness, driving entrepreneurs to find innovative solutions to challenges with limited financial resources.

Knowing When to Raise Funds

Of course, there comes a point in the startup journey where external funding may become necessary. Whether it is to fuel rapid expansion, penetrate new markets, or invest in research and development, raising capital can provide the resources needed to scale effectively.

However, my advice to fellow entrepreneurs is to bootstrap for as long as possible and raise money only when absolutely necessary or when pursuing ventures requiring substantial upfront investment, such as hardware startups.

By bootstrapping initially, startups can prove their concept, validate their market fit, and demonstrate traction, increasing their attractiveness to potential investors. By retaining ownership and control during the early stages, founders can negotiate from a position of strength when seeking external funding, ensuring they maintain a significant stake in their success.

Ultimately, the key is to strike the right balance between independence and strategic growth, leveraging external funding when necessary while preserving the spirit of entrepreneurship that drives innovation and creativity.

Ready to chart your startup journey? Check out our Startup Program or book a call with us now to learn how you can supercharge your startup.

‍

Project

1 min read

Pivot Like a Pro: Startup Strategies for Success

Cleevio

Company News

Discover the highlights from our recent exclusive panel discussion featuring Roman Stanek, CEO of GoodData, alongside industry leader Milo Poplar and our Head of North America, Filip Orth.

The event provided valuable insights into global-scale product building and entrepreneurial success. Dive into the key takeaways and memorable moments from this engaging discussion, where experienced pioneers shared their wisdom and expertise on the AI landscape.

We were thrilled to have Roman Stanek and his impressive track record in building successful startups. His journey began with the acquisition of NetBeans by Sun Microsystems in 1999, followed by the acquisition of Systinet by Hewlett Packard in 2006. Along the way, his ventures received support from renowned VC funds like a16z, Intel Capital, and General Catalyst.

Outsourcing

During the event, our discussions delved deeply into the strategies startups can employ to enhance efficiency through outsourcing across various operational domains. We explored how outsourcing can serve as a vital tool in mitigating the challenges inherent in the dynamic startup landscape. Among others, these challenges encompass navigating a tough fundraising environment and contending with fierce competition in virtually every industry.

Agility and adaptability

Central to our discussions was the imperative for startup founders to remain agile and adaptable in the face of evolving circumstances. We underscored the critical importance of being responsive to market shifts and customer demands, emphasizing the need for continual adjustment to ensure the longevity and success of their ventures.

Operational effectively

The ability to pivot effectively is essential, particularly when considering the quest for operational efficiency. In this context, leveraging outsourcing capabilities becomes paramount, whether it is in technological development, sales, marketing, or legal compliance. This strategic approach is especially pertinent in the current landscape, where fundraising endeavors are meeting with increased difficulty, and access to capital is more constrained than it was just two years ago.

Milo Poplar, Co-founder of Eldison during presentation

We intend to make this event a regular occurrence. We aim to host Founders’ Lounge regularly, each time focusing on a different theme and bringing in a special guest who will share insights from their entrepreneurial journey.

Are you a founder, investor, CTO or decision-maker in the technological startup environment seeking to accelerate your growth and gain a competitive edge in the market? Watch our LinkedIn for future invites!

Development

1 min read

Crash-Proofing Your Code: Setting Up Sentry on Android

Tomáš Dvořáček

Senior Android Developer

Welcome back! As promised, we are here with the second part of the Crash-proofing series. This time, we will show you how to set up Sentry for the Android platform and some nice-to-have stuff as a bonus.

Let's begin!

Create sentry.properties file inside your Android project’s root folder

Initial setup in Sentry Admin

These are a few things you need to do before implementing Sentry Android SDK.

Create a new project in Sentry. Give this project some appropriate name like your-project-android
Then go to Settings → Projects → Your new Project → General Settings

You should see the name of your project. This is your project_id. In sentry.properties, replace <project_id> with it
Then go to Organization settings → General Settings, copy your organisation_slug and replace <organisation_slug> inside sentry.properties

Then go to User and tokens and create new Token. You can add every permission to it for a start but its better to check every permission and decide for yourself what is needed.

Then copy your new auth token and replace <auth_token> with it inside sentry.properties.Sentry can upload ProGuard mapping files for you and needs this auth token. Ignore this if you don’t care about ProGuard
Your sentry.properties should be filled now.
Then go to Settings → Projects → Your new Project → Client Key (DSN)
Get your DSN link and save it somewhere for now.

Now you can return to your Android Project

Adding sentry to project

A full tutorial is on this page. Sentry can set itself with a command, but if you prefer a manual approach or have problems, follow the instructions below or this page. Sentry will also give you a direct link for setup in Android Studio (https://sentry.io/organizations/XXX/projects/YYY/getting-started/)

Add this to your main module build.gradle

Open your application class and initiate Sentry

Let’s explore what each line does:

This line applies the environment to the issue. If you use several build flavors like development and production, you can then easily filter specific flavors.

These lines set the percentage value of how many traces to log. 100% means everything is logged. It’s not recommended to collect everything in a production environment; however, e.g., on development, it’s a good thing since testers could find bugs. In our example, we set the percentage on the release version to 10%.

Open your AndroidManifest.xml file inside your main module and insert this

If you don’t want to use CI/CD and just hardcode your DSN, replace ${sentryDsnUrl} with your collected DSN link.

Open app’s build.gradle and setup DSN there as well

Add Sentry gradle plugin to project

This code enables sentry gradle plugin. This prepares scripts for your convenience like uploading aab to sentry with proguard mapping files.

Nice things to know

Assign someone to new issue

Every issue in Sentry can be assigned to someone and you can do that manually or automatically with rules.

Create Jira issue directly from Sentry

If you setup the Jira integration mentioned in the previous article, Sentry enables you to quickly and easily create Jira issues from the issue itself.

Discover page

Discover page let’s you quickly query in all yours collected data so you can answer analytics questions or analyse potential health issues in your project. You can use predefined queries or create, edit and delete your own queries. It’s really powerful tool but it’s limited only to Trial and Business Plan.

Pluggins for Sentry

Sentry for Android offers plugins which let’s you automatically collect more specific data. For example:

Some stuff like Android Fragments, okHttp events and logcat are already logged automatically from Sentry version 3.1.0.

In order to disable them, change the sentry config in the project’s build.gradle.

OkHttp plugin

Like said above, from Sentry 3.1.0, Sentry will automatically log OkHttp event via manipulating your final bytecode and inserting SentryOkHttpInterceptor. This will create breadcrumbs which would look like this:

‍

If you use Sentry 3.11.0+, Sentry will also insert SentryOkHttpEventListener which will log even more data from http requests. Everything will be logged with logcat:

Thank you for diving into the second part of our series. If you have any questions, feel free to catch up or reach out.

‍

all posts