MVP Development – Think Big But Start Small

MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is a working, customer-facing version of a product at its earliest stages. It contains only the core features of the product and fulfills its primary purpose. Building an MVP helps to reduce the costs and development time and allows to gather priceless customer feedback about the solution in question.

In software development, building an MVP is a way of testing the waters, validating your vision, and gathering feedback. Here, you’re focusing on the minimum amount of features instead of developing a fully-fledged product.

MVP development can be narrowed down to a few core stages:

• Research - a successful product solves real user problems, so you should always validate your concept before you provide a solution. Check out your competition and find what their offers are missing.


• Definition of the problem - you should be able to define the problem you’re solving. Try answering questions like: Why am I solving this problem, Who will benefit from my solution, How will my product benefit my customers.


• User journey mapping - it’s crucial to know the primary goals of your new product. Try to come up with the steps users have to take to reach their goal, but remember, it should be as simple as possible.


• Features prioritization - did you know that almost 50% of features in software products are rarely or never used? Focus only on the crucial must-have features and plan to scale up the product down the line.


• MVP building and testing - MVP is what you’ll give to your users so make sure it’s usable and fully functional. Remember to test the solution for bugs and potential performance issues.


• Release - come up with a plan of action, pick a partner that will help you release the solution, and gather customer feedback.


• Further development - once you get more ideas about the future of your product, you can think about scaling it up, changing its direction, or even dropping it altogether.

There’s no universal answer for how much your MVP will cost as it all depends on the product itself. At CSHARK, the very first step of MVP development is a workshop, which costs a set amount between $10000-$12000. But, to build a successful MVP you’ll need a skilled team of developers, a UX/UI designer, and a Project Manager. Depending on the expertise, the number of people engaged, and time spent on creating the app, we can say that a good MVP can vary from $40000-$120k.

The time dedicated to MVP development depends on the scope of the solution. It should be enough to create a working, functional product and test it - all while maintaining the highest quality. To make it a bit easier, let’s assume that each stage of MVP building takes:

• Research and planning (1-2 weeks)


• MVP development project planning (1 week)


• MVP building (2-6 months)


• Launch (1 week)

Creating an MVP doesn’t mean simply building a product that solves current needs. It’s all about looking in the future, leaving room for growth.

With an experienced project team, you can further expand your product, adding new functionalities. Here you can choose from a monolith architecture or a microservice architecture approach. The former makes use of components that are brought together to create a single program or platform, while the latter is built as a collection of modular services. In a microservice architecture, each module serves a specific business goal and is connected to other modules.

Confidentiality and security are crucial parts of any collaboration. At CSHARK, we ensure not only the highest quality of software solutions but also data security. By signing an NDA, you can be sure your information is safe with us.

We can guide you through the software development processes from start to finish and provide you with specialists that can handle all the technical aspects. However, before we start the development, you will take part in a consultation where you’ll be able to discuss your idea and ask any burning questions about the MVP development process. During the meeting, you’ll talk to a digital solutions consultant who participates in sprint workshops and will be able to translate the technical jargon.

Later on, you’ll be working with a team with a product design consultant, product designers, Business Analysts, Project Manager, and, of course, software developers, but the final composition always depends on the individual business needs.

When translating your idea into a digital product, you will have to decide on many things:

• Which programming language to use? There are many options of languages and frameworks for both front-end and back-end development. Each has unique capabilities and approaches to software creation.


• Web or mobile app? This will depend on the type of the product and your customers’ habits and expectations. Here you can also decide to go with a native app or a Progressive Web App (PWA).


• What is the best architecture? A monolith app is a single, indivisible unit and is easier to develop, debug and test. On the other hand, in a microservice architecture, your app is split up into independent modules allowing better scalability.


• Traditional Infrastructure vs. Cloud Computing? Do you want your product to be accessed via physical hardware, or should it be hosted in the cloud?

Your final choice will ultimately depend on the product requirements, your preference as well as the target audience. By hiring an experienced development team, you can be sure the right choices are going to be made. Thanks to their expert knowledge, developers are able to decide on the best option for your case to deliver a powerful solution.

The team is always tailored to the specific needs of the business and client, but to give a more straightforward answer it’s usually a product designer, analysts, software developers, software architects, branding specialists, and Project Manager.

We always work with our clients, not only for them. A great example of such collaboration is our electrifying project called Nudge.