Thinking of bringing your big idea to life?
Well, choosing the right team for your MVP development can make a big impact.
We understand it’s hard to find the right tools, processes, and frameworks, and figure out all those technical details for your project, let alone find a suitable team to bring your digital product idea to life.
But worry not.
In this article, we will help you filter out the best MVP development team for your idea while avoiding 10 critical red flags.
Let’s delve in!
What is an MVP Development Service?
A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the initial version of a product that you want to achieve. It includes only the essential features to meet the needs (and wants) of early users.
The main goal is to test and validate your idea—how profitable it is, if a target audience is interested in it, what’s their feedback, and what they want to see in it—with minimal time and cost investment.
An MVP software development service is the team or company that helps bring this MVP to life.
They have the relevant experience, resources, technical know-how, and everything that it takes to make your product idea functional, profitable, and scalable.
Additionally, the MVP team also helps you gather sufficient feedback to validate your app idea as well as refine, iterate, and improve on your product before putting in more time and money.
This way you can reduce the risk of failure by avoiding common SaaS MVP development mistakes, ensuring your product is all set before the final roll-out to the market.
What’s more, the team helps prove to your investors that your concept is worth looking into by providing real-time results or audience feedback to back it up.
For instance, as people start using your service, the MVP team keeps a close eye on customer satisfaction score (CSAT), user retention, feedback, and revenue growth rate. This enables the team to record these stats and measure MVP’s success.
What Are the Elements of Good MVP Development?
A good MVP development involves more than just coding, its about understanding the heart of the problem your users experience and creating a solution around it.
Now, let’s discuss some key elements of a decent MVP development:
Must-Have Elements in Your MVP
(These are critical features essential for the product’s success and viability)
- It must define a clear vision and specific goals for the MVP
- It must determine the minimum set of features that make the product viable
- It must prioritize user experience (UX), focusing on a simple and intuitive design, per target audience needs
- It must use agile methodologies for improved flexibility and responsiveness to change
- It must have a feedback mechanism to gather (useful) user feedback to enhance the product based on user insights
- It must consider scalability when designing an MVP to house future growth
- It must ensure legal compliance and regulations
- It must document user feedback and decisions made for future development and scaling
How to Find the Right MVP Development Service
While it might compel you to google around for an MVP development service, it’s crucial to follow a clear process to make the right choice. After working with 50+ companies, we found the following technique to be the most time and resource-efficient.
Identify potential partners
When qualifying the right MVP development partners for your minimum viable product, you must do it strategically as you don’t want to lose the one who might be absolutely right for you.
Ideally, you may want to focus on the MVP development service that’s experienced in your niche/industry, has good reviews and happy clients, shows trust and reliability, and most importantly, understands your project and is responsive.
Expert Tip: You can find and compare MVP services on popular platforms like Clutch, UpCity, GoodFirms, and more.
Look for the following factors when identifying potential partners:
A nice and detailed website is a green flag: The first thing you’d want to look at in your MVP developer is their business website.
Does it look professional and appealing? It has the relevant details you might want to look into. Past work? Any recent certifications or awards they’re proud of? What does their team look like?
If you can see the following details, you should mark it on your list of potential MVP development services.
But if it doesn’t meet the given criteria, simply move on to the next option — without hesitating to cross it out from the list.
A niche-relevant experience: Check their niche-relevant experience or whether they’ve got an MVP development for start-ups experience at all.
If they’re new to the space, it may seem a bit risky. However, consider having a detailed meeting to make sure they’re a right fit for your project.
Sometimes, you may find a new company does an impeccable job than even a well-reputed one. It all depends on how genuinely interested they are in your project and how dedicated to ensuring its success.
Look for client testimonials and referrals: Social proof is one of the best ways to find a credible service. While it might seem tempting to see how persuasively the company describes its services and showcases glowing reviews, make your decision after verifying authentic referrals/resources.
Talk to founders who worked with them before. What was their experience about working with them, is there anything particular that seemed off?
Don’t just gamble on the service, make sure it’s reliable, competent, and understands your project idea. These insights will help you make a smarter choice and give you a sense of what it’s like to work together.
They’re good communicators: Transparent and responsive communication can make a big difference in a project’s success. Clear out your concerns and ask relevant questions like what’s their work style, methods, frameworks, tools they use, etc.
What’s more, make sure they’re good at providing updates, clear expectations of budget and timeline plans, and communicating ideas.
They have a well-defined project management process: Impeccable project management ensures less hassle and more results. It also helps you to get your project done smoothly, while keeping you involved.
Expert Tip: Find a team that can adapt. MVPs often change based on customers’ feedback.
Willingness to sign an NDA: Sort out all the legal matters in a contract. Who owns the work? Keep things clear from the get-go. Since the data involved is sensitive, make sure they have sound security protocols in place and are willing to sign an NDA.
Industry certifications and awards are a plus: Awards from companies like Clutch and Web Excellence clearly say how good the service would be.
Btw, VeryCreatives was the winner of top software and app developers in Hungary in 2023.
Meet in Person (if you can): If you can, visit their office. Meet and discuss your project in person. See how they respond, what their work culture looks like, and if it feels right.
Trust Your Gut Feeling: Most importantly, trust your feelings. If you feel good about the team, that’s a good sign! Go for it.
10 red flags to look out for while choosing your MVP development service
The current failure rate of startups is a whopping 90%.
An MVP is a business’s main foundation, so it needs to be set right to ensure survival in the market.
Here are a few considerations before saying ‘YES’ to an MVP development company.
1. Little to No MVP Niche Experience
If they’re new to the space and know little to nothing about your niche, consider it a red flag.
You need a team that understands the unique challenges and opportunities your market brings.
A specialized team can make it less painful and more efficient for you to turn your idea into an MVP that helps you gather necessary insights about your users.
2. Neglected Brand Image
If the company hasn’t updated its site in ages and its brand looks a bit “meh”, consider it another red flag.
An outdated or underwhelming portfolio is a clear indicator of a subpar service. It raises a question about their ability to deliver a well-functional MVP.
Look for a team that makes you go, “Wow. This is it!”
3. Not Responsive in their Communication
Does the team seem to be slow in responding or forget to keep you in the loop? It’s been weeks and you’ve no freakin’ idea what’s going on. Well, that’s a major red flag.
If they are too lazy to respond or lack regular updates, it could lead to misunderstandings and missed deadlines. Choose a team that values clear communication, discusses project challenges, and keeps you posted.
4. Unrealistic Commitments
Companies offering promises that sound too good to be true will most of the time fail to deliver.
Therefore, commitments like significantly lower costs and shorter timelines may result in a rushed development, compromised quality, and unexpected cost surprises. Most importantly, this can add to a technical debt.
Let’s be real: building a quality product takes time and effort. It isn’t like pulling a rabbit out of an empty hat, right?
5. No credible reviews to show
If a company’s reviews sound a bit shady or it has got no credible reviews or case studies of startups they’ve helped to build MVP and grow, don’t proceed any further with it.
Choosing a service with no reviews is like you don’t know what you’re getting into. It raises doubts about their reliability. If there are little to no positive testimonials about them on sites like Trustpilot, Clutch, or GoodFirm, consider it a ‘no.’
Look for teams with satisfied clients—startup founders.
6. Not clear project management process
If you’re not sure what their project management looks like or they’re not employing an efficient project management process, it’s also a red flag.
A well-defined project management process is essential for tracking progress, addressing issues, and ensuring timely delivery. It helps to ensure everyone is on the same page and avoids confusion and headaches later on.
Make sure your MVP development partner has an efficient project management process in place.
7. Their solutions are not scalable and future-proof
If the team doesn’t have a long-term vision for the product or their service lacks insights into scalability and future development needs of your product, chances are they might not be ready for what’s next.
The MVP should grow with your business. If the solutions offered are not scalable or future-proof, you might end up facing major issues down the line. Consider increased costs, service disruptions, or even a complete overhaul of the product’s architecture. Thus, ensure the team thinks long-term.
8. No Post-Dev Support
If they haven’t said a line about ongoing or post-dev support in an initial consultation or that they provide limited or no post-dev support, don’t go for it.
A good partnership doesn’t end with the MVP launch. But it provides ongoing support and insights to tackle issues that arise post-launch and help your MVP thrive into a profitable startup.
Without post-dev guidance, your product might struggle in the market. You need to look for a team that stays with you even after the successful completion of MVP, as you might need help with recording the audience’s feedback and refining your product.
9. They’re not really interested in knowing you
A team that doesn’t get to know your business vision and goals and target audience might not create a product that fits your target market’s needs. A deep understanding of your business is essential for creating a customized and effective MVP. A lack of interest may lead to a mismatched solution.
Look for an agency with a drawn-out “get to know you” process and ask you a lot of questions.
10. Hesitant to sign an NDA
Your ideas are your business’s most valuable asset. Therefore, they must not be shared, especially with your competitors. Make sure the MVP service you’re working with respects your intellectual property and protects your innovation by signing an NDA.
Start Your MVP Development with the Right Team Today
You can make an informed decision by understanding what makes a good MVP, how to find the right service, and what to look out for during the selection process.
While still knowing all the details we laid down for you, it can be a hard and time-consuming process.
To make it easy and fast for you, we at VeryCreatives, are here to help take your product idea to the next level with a solid MVP. We understand what a winning MVP looks like and how crucial it is for it to be so well that it can accelerate your business growth.
Our seasoned team has built a number of MVPs for various startups and companies like ReachBird, RedBull, Jamdoughnut, and more.
So, it’s safe to say that VeryCreatives is undoubtedly the right option for you. Book a call with our founders Máté and Feri to learn more about how we can help you.
We hope this article was helpful!
