How much should I invest in my MVP?

Hi Future Founder! This is Jorge Herna, Founder of NocodePM.

If you are here, you are wondering how much you should invest in building your MVP. And, to be honest with you, tons of articles outside will tell you: "It depends".

Do not worry, I won't be so simple. I will tell you how much I would invest if I were you by the end of the article, but first, I want to set some important key points that will give you better context before going crazy and just focusing on the Number.

What's an MVP and Why do I need one?

Let's keep it simple, a Minimum Viable Product or MVP is just a way to test your Product Idea with your users to gather User Validation. It's intended to give us enough qualitative and quantitative data to say: Looks like we have something to invest our money.

What does that mean?

• This means that if you are still wondering about Market Validation you don't need to build any app or product to test your idea, you first need to gather data to validate the problem and the market. (If you want a step-by-step guide to help you, you can check out our Product Discovery Workshop)

I have validated the Market and the Problem, What now?

• So now is the moment you need to validate the solution and for that, you need to build an MVP. Probably by now, you have been surrounded by acronyms like Minimum Lovable Product or Minimum Viable Product.

• Don't get confused, to keep it simple use the following rule of thumb: Am I the first mover in this Market? If yes, MVP is enough, if No, we should aim to give even a greater experience to the user that can beat the competition (the x10 times better theory)

Your goal as a Founder is to invest the lowest amount of money to gather data about the Market and the Solution proposed to solve the problem, so you can increase the confidence that you are idea is a good one.

Is there some minimum bar I should respect?

No, especially if you are starting your company. Do you remember how Airbnb looked when it launched? No, right? Companies like Products iterate a lot, and the clients or future users will understand that you are working towards the goal of finding a great solution, for a potential and big problem that can help you be financially stable.

So do not get obsessed with Pixel Perfect or have XYZ Features for the MVP.

Your MVP should be the Core Behavior plus the minimum features you need around it to work normally (sign up, log in, etc.)

Since the Core Behavior is the reason why your users will pay you, you need to gather data that tells you that's true first, and then think about the rest of the envelope.

• Launch Quickly

• Get Initial Customers

• Gather Qualitative and Quantitative Feedback.

How much should I invest in my MVP?

Code or No code, as we mentioned above, we must aim for simplicity and find a way to increase confidence that the solution we have designed to solve the problem is the right one.

That said, here comes the big question: How much should I invest in my MVP?

• For simple MVPs, our advice is not to invest more than €8,000.

• For complex or heavy MVPs (significant regulation, hard tech, etc.), our advice is not to invest more than €15,000 in the MVP.

Why?

• More often than not your solution is not as good as you think. Therefore, the less money you spend, the less money you will miss after launching.

• No-code solutions can be affordable, but also expensive if the solution you want to build is complex or within a delicate industry.

• Tech Feasibility is one important step you need to go through during your Validation Journey. If it's too complex to build and expensive, you might want to re-think how to gather User validation.

Is there an alternative to building an MVP to achieve user validation?

Actually, no. Building an MVP remains the best way to collect user data. However, if you've conducted thorough product discovery, you should have enough confidence in your idea by the time you begin building your MVP. This way, you can be sure you're investing your money wisely and heading in the right direction.

Conclusions

The way we build products is getting faster every day thanks to No-code solutions, or even AI. This means that finding a remarkable problem and validating it is getting more crucial.

Check out our Product Discovery Workshop if you want to validate your new Digital Product in 5-weeks.

And if you feel you are ready to build your MVP with Code or No code, send us an email 😊.

Hope to see you soon!

Jorge Herna

Founder of NocodePM