You’ve got an idea, you’ve done your research and now you must validate your idea by building an MVP.
Here are some ideas and tips to ensure you get that MVP wrapped-up in a weekend:
- Don’t be concerned about using the latest library or framework, use PHP and JQuery if it means you get the job done quicker.
- Don’t even think about future scalability, no AWS auto-scaling. Opt for the free plan from Cloudflare for your CDN.
- Don’t waste time setting up a pipeline to minify your JS and CSS, just check the boxes in the Cloudflare dashboard and they’ll minify everything for you.
- Don’t spend time setting up HTTPS, or ensuring you redirect from HTTP to HTTPS. Again it’s just a Cloudflare checkbox.
- Don’t charge anything for your MVP, give it away for free. Don’t setup Stripe or any other payment system.
- Don’t spend time on design or a logo, use a free landing page template and consider using an emoji for your logo.
- When registering your domain name, use a provider like Gandi which provides whois privacy for free.
- Don’t register or setup any social media profiles.
- Do setup Google Analytics (or similar), its quick and will help you validate your idea.
Finally, launch as quickly as possible and start spreading the word on HN and PH, if you have created something people want and are willing to pay for, then give yourself permission to improve your MVP and do some of the things above. If not, discard it, or pivot. Good luck!
Here’s a successful MVP that I’ve built in a weekend using the methods above:
- Director Alerts – https://directoralerts.website