The Right Way to Grow Your MVP: Lessons from Parenting

Launching a tech project is similar to having a child.

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You have that idea that your son or daughter will be a successful artist. Or surgeon. Or writer – you name it. That's a lot of responsibility for a person who has yet to see the light of day! But you know better. You don't want all this boring stuff like the first words, first steps, first day of school... That's all unimportant. What matters is that your child becomes a successful whatever you want them to be. So the mother spends some 30-40 years bearing the perfect child and gives birth to a big, grown-ass, slimy and wrinkly person in a Brioni suit. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that they are successful.

As absurd as it sounds, that's what many entrepreneurs attempt to do with their tech project ideas. But things don't work this way. Why? Mother nature, that's why. You just can't skip some stages. That's the importance of launching a child into this world quickly – you spend time with them, you teach them stuff, you identify their preferences, you let them socialise and learn from their mistakes, choose their path in life and ultimately doing your best in supporting them along the way.

Think of MVP as a child – a quick blob of person you love as it is. The goal is to start quickly and somewhat going with the flow. Don't make the mother (your team) suffer for 30 years straight to give birth to a fully developed product.

Okay, all obscene imagery aside, let's discuss what it means in practical terms. Take the idea of the product you want to see in 10 years and put it in the drawer. Now, outline the simplest, most basic iteration of that product. This is your MVP. A product that doesn't take years to develop, but is good enough to start living its own life.

Next, give it an opportunity to socialise: release it to the market. But, as with a child, be careful – pay attention to its interactions with your target audience, monitor problems, gather feedback, as if you were talking with their school teachers. These are all areas of improvement, that you will work on later.

Does your app have 'health problems'? Does it take too long to load? Well, get it a gym membership. Check if your dev team can optimise its code. Or work on its diet and cut down on the use of dependencies. Does your app have 'style problems'? Time to go shopping! There's a dress code even in Harvard after all. Conduct an additional market research and try to understand how does your target audience expect your app to look like. Then, provide this information to the designers.

The steps above are unimaginable without testing. So test, test, and then test some more. As they say, ideas only sound good in your head. And testing is what makes them actually look good on paper.

Some time has passed. Your app is a teenager now. What's the worst thing you can do to a teenager? Ask any parent and they will tell you that their biggest fiasco was trying to force their teenager into a certain mold. Same thing with MVP's. You have to 'listen' to what your product wants to become itself. And you'll need a fair amount of patience, intuition and wisdom for that. But this pays off well, trust me. Don't worry about the goth phase, about dreadlocks or teenage slang, it's just that – a phase. And if it isn't – it's a personality.

What happens next? The next big step in the life of your child! University. And you need resources for that (i.e. money / cash / gold / USD / $$$). Investments. Good thing your child shows promise. Top universities might be interested in investing in your child – they can become the next Picasso, Avicenna or Hemingway after all! Remember, the world is not against you, there are a lot of people interested in the success of your product.

Great, your child is now in a great university, receiving teachings by the best. You're halfway there. What you need is to fuel your MVP's hunger for knowledge and motivation. Scale your team, expand your product offering, develop new features, monitor its progress. You have to be prepared for their graduation. Real world is around the corner!

So, what now? Does the journey end after the university? Of course not, it's just the start! Your MVP is now finally ready to become the full product – the successful artist, surgeon, writer or whatever you wanted it to become. What you now know is what your product is, why is it better than other products and what it can offer to the world. It's a gratifying experience, don't rob yourself of it. Now you can safely release it to the public and see the fruits of your work – both as an entrepreneur and a team.

So, looking for a mother to bear your child? Goddammit, that sounded bad. Anyway, at Match.dev we connect you with top talent, quickly and affordably. And keep in mind, you're not outsourcing a dev – you're getting a full-fledged team member who seamlessly integrates into your project management ecosystem and works in line with your product strategy. Drop us a line and let us help you find the right developers! team@match.dev

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