Podcasts Business Startup Snack : Your daily drop of entrepreneurship tips Scale your MVP with almost no money

Scale your MVP with almost no money

Published: June 10, 2019, 10 a.m.

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In this episode, Amaury and Mitchie go over the last 2 levels of the prototyping process, where your MVP will gradually transform into an established product. This includes educating founders on the bare minimum of tech CEO\\u2019s need to understand.

Pre-order a copy of Amaury\\u2019s new book,\\xa0Startup Without a CTO, and get an early digital version two months before the official launch:\\xa0http://startupwithoutcto.com/
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Disclamer!
This episode has a lot of technical terms. The idea is for you to get the concept more than memorizing the technologies. You can always refer to our notes and other content to address more specific topics in the prototyping stage.
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4 levels of MVP Prototyping

  • Level 0: No tech 0%
    Do everything or almost everything manually
  • Level 1: Little tech, anyone can learn 1%
    Start automation and using existing tools
  • Level 2: 5% Custom dev
    Real application with a bit of customization
  • Level 3: 10- 15% Custom dev\\xa0
    Move on to proper development.
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Is it necessary to go through all of them?
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No, it\'s a self-assessment exercise to figure out where you should start.
If you only have an idea without much market understanding, start from Level 0 . Make sure you know that this is going to have an audience.
If you\'re already figured that out, you\'ve been working on the industry for long enough, then you might start from Level 2.
Or if you\'re not sure how to structure things at the beginning, maybe Level 1 is more up your alley.
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The point is: if there\\u2019s enough market understanding you can invest a little in a real functional app.
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So when setting up a simple Wordpress website, headless CMS or a business intelligence tool -aka. a reporting tool- is not cutting it anymore, how do you move forward?

Prototyping Level 2

5% of Tech : Real app with a bit of customization
GOAL: To build a better Customer Experience (not just talking about graphic design, but also functionalities, experience, interactions\\u2026 )
  • Use an app maker (ex. Bubble.is\\u2192 you can learn with Zeroqode) with (opensource) templates \\u2192 Moodle/Edx
Saas solution with a membership LMS/Business intelligence
Reuse existing technologies for an SaaS - Solution

What do we need to make it? So far we\\u2019ve been able to do things mostly by ourselves. We just needed a bit of help for the automation\\u2026 Nothing really complex

Now we will need a bit of a developer\\u2019s and engineer\\u2019s time to install the right tools, and combine them.
Also identify resources on a global marketplace, or people that are good with specific development\\u2026
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MVP Prototyping Level 3

10- 15% of Tech:
At this level, the goal is to make the gradual transition to our own product.
Developing the core of our application, still using most of the tools we have so far,
Refactor the interface\\u2026 Focusing on specific needs
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GOAL: Get rid of what is inefficient, transform what works and standardize it.
And keep using external services that are relevant and reliable!
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A good example of what you would drop is Zapier. It\'s an extremely useful tool, but at this scale it becomes extremely unreliable, so stop using it. Move on to real cloud functions.
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A great way to guarantee reliability is by moving onto real microservices, with the option of rollback or a fail-over process in case of failure.
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What are Microservices?
Instead of developing one big software that includes all of the actions one may ever ask of it, we create one small piece of software for each clear and independent feature or function. That small piece of software is referred to as a Microservice.
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Let\'s assume that we want to recognize a text on an image. We can have a microservice that is going to take the image from one directory, analyze what is inside, and put the result in a database or maybe in a text file next to the image. And that\'s it, that\'s the whole purpose of that one specific microservice

These microservices have been specifically designed for "small tasks", they are ready to go, reliable and optimized. Recognize what parts of your solution can be optimized by using existing APIs, and integrate them in your process.

Then comes your innovative / disruptive side,\\xa0you can identify the other kinds of functionalities that are maybe more specific to your solution and particularly to what you want to develop. Those can be custom developed to your needs snd those would represent that 15% of tech required in level 3 of prototyping your MVP

Getting to know what\'s out there

Reusing pieces of software
Do not reinvent the wheel !
There are plenty of options out there for real Saas API Solutions, covering any need you might have. Making the most of them helps you transition onto\\xa0building an entire ecosystem, where you can create future versions

Definition - What does Legacy System mean?

A legacy system, in the context of computing, refers to outdated computer systems, programming languages or application software that are used instead of available upgraded versions
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By choosing to build an MVP, in some way we are creating legacy on purpose, because we don\\u2019t know if things are going to work, and we don\\u2019t want to spend too much money upfront\\u2026
By starting with a microservice approach, we ensure that we will be able to move away from those legacy blocks and create more up-to-date and reliable solutions

Transcript

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For more information about MyCTOfriend check: https://myctofriend.co

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