Accelerating MVP development for Startups

Non-technical startup founders have great ideas however they are often stuck trying to find a starting point. If they have a business background, they will embark on multi-week journeys working on business-type activities: market analysis, competitive analysis, cash flow projections, marketing personas etc. We say that’s the wrong approach; There is no product or platform to sell yet - never mind a customer who may be interested - there is, therefore, nothing to analyze.

In the startup world, the meaning of “time is money” is paramount. Where liquidity is a luxury and long hours are the norm, efficiency must be maximized from day 1. We’re not saying that all these marketing and business analysis activities are useless – what we’re saying is that there is a time and place for them and day 1 of your startup is not the right time. The key to success is iteration.

Iteration is probably the most miss-understood keyword in the startup world. The concept is very simple: you start with a crappy napkin-idea, and you bring it to life as quickly as possible to bring it to your potential customers. Why would you do that without refining it? Because your potential customers are going to refine it for you. Ego aside, as tech startup founders, you don’t know what your customers want. Do you know who does? Your customers. Your job therefore should be to put something usable in front of them as quickly as possible, get their feedback as quickly as possible and iterate (thus improve) as quickly as possible.

Non-technical founders should focus first and foremost on creating wireframes for their MVP application. A picture is worth a thousand words truly takes on a crucial meaning in a startup. The #1 tool in a non-technical founder’s arsenal should be the use of Figma.

Technical founders who may not be creatives should focus on the data model required to support the MVP for their product. If the data model is clear enough to be understood and translated into wireframes by a UX designer, the technical founder wins twice. First by having their MVP’s data model validated and second by not needing to write pages and pages of requirements.

Taking the above approaches, both technical and non-technical founders can accelerate the development of their MVPs by hitting the ground running on day 1.

At Ten-24 Inc, we create beautiful data models that make sense for the Minimum Viable Product or Proof of Concept that you can put in front of your customers to validate and iterate on as needed to deliver a solid revenue-generating product.