What is MVP in SaaS?
Whenever the topic of launching a tech-startup or a SaaS arises, the conversation often highlights the importance of first building an MVP, or 'Minimum Viable Product'. Despite its frequent mention, the concept of a Minimum Viable Product often confuses many first-time founders.
An MVP, as the name suggests, is the most basic version of your SaaS, stripped down to only its most essential features. The primary focus here is to deliver the core functionality of what will eventually be your full-featured SaaS, without concerns for design, scalability, or quality issues.
Founders, especially those starting out for the first time, often find it challenging to decide what features to include in an MVP. The key is to focus on the core feature - the main thing that your SaaS does. Everything else is secondary.
The whole idea is to quickly reach out to potential customers, gather their feedback and iterate based on that feedback. After all, there's little value in creating a perfectly designed, full-featured SaaS that no one will use.
A common pitfall for many first-time SaaS founders, particularly those who are developers themselves, is becoming so absorbed in the development process that they lose sight of the true essence of the business: connecting to customers and building a product that solves any of their pain points.
Building an MVP for your SaaS or Micro SaaS enables you to avoid this pitfall and stay focused. By focusing on developing the core functionality of your SaaS, you can dedicate time to understanding your target market, engaging with early customers and identifying their issues and pain points. This helps you in building a product and adding features which your customers genuinely require. If you find yourself struggling to secure initial customers, the MVP approach enables you to reach realistic conclusions quicker - saving time, money, and energy. You can then concentrate on developing your next idea rather than being drained by the failure of your full-featured SaaS.
Some founders worry that without a sleek design or lots of features, they'll have a hard time selling their product because customers won't find it attractive enough. But many successful SaaS founders have found that the opposite is true. If your SaaS startup solves a real problem that a customer has, they'll be keen to to use it and pay for it. More importantly, they will be enthusiastic about seeing the SaaS evolve to meet their needs. These early adopters don't just become customers, they become an integral part of your journey.
Can you generate revenue with MVP products in SaaS?
Absolutely, MVPs can indeed be profitable. And there's no shortage of examples where founders have transparently shared their experiences and earnings. FounderBeats is a valuable resource for this - you can find 100+ founders sharing their success stories as well as other stats and metrics including MRR, time to acquire their first 50 customers etc. Most of them started by building MVPs of their SaaS and iterated based on the feedback from their early customers.
6 Advantages of starting SaaS with MVP
- Faster Iteration: Building an MVP, instead of a full-featured SaaS, lets you build, launch and gain feedback quickly. This enables you to validate your idea and reach quicker without spending too much time. In short, you can experiment faster.
- Reduced Cost: The initial cost of launching a SaaS reduces significantly as the focus is on the development of only the core features and not the entire product.
- Strong Relationships with Early Customers: Building an MVP and adding features based on customer feedback cultivates long-term relationships with early adopters. This leads to a more loyal customer base.
- Easy to Pivot: If you have just built an MVP for your SaaS, it’s easier to pivot and change direction as per the insights you gather from your MVP lauch and customer interactions.
- Reduced Risk: By just building a basic version of your app, you minimize your risk by saving on time, cost and energy.
- Focus on the Business Strategy: Building a profitable SaaS is not just about development. Early launching keeps you focused on the strategies and marketing required for your SaaS's growth.
4 ways to validate your MVP
Validating your MVP involves evaluating your initial assumptions about your target market, customer needs, pain points, and outreach. It's about using real data to assess whether your MVP is heading in the right direction and has potential for success. Based on this and your SaaS metrics, you can make an informed decision about further investment or a possible pivot. Here are a few ways to carry out this validation:
- Create a landing page featuring a mock video of your SaaS (without actually developing it), along with a sign-up form for invite-only access. Market this via social media or paid ads and try to get a couple of signups.
- If your MVP is functional, acquiring a few early paid customers can serve as an initial validation of your idea and product.
- Keep a track of various SaaS metrics like Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Customer Lifetime Value (LTV), engagement scores, churn rate etc. can help you evaluate the potential for future success and growth of your idea and product.
- Utilizing in-app surveys and feedback can provide insights about your customers, their preferences for features, satisfaction levels, and willingness to transition to a paid option. option.
5 Products that can build MVPs with No Code
There are many good tools that make it feasible to build MVPs for both B2C and B2B SaaS without coding. A few of the promising ones include:
- Bubble: Bubble lets you build web apps visually and is a common choice for building MVPs.
- Flezr: Flezr is a new entrant that is increasingly becoming popular amongst founders as it’s quite powerful without any steep learning curve. It provides a very intuitive and smooth user experience for visually building various dynamic websites linked to your data in Google Sheets or Supabase - from directories and event websites to job boards and more. You can check the use cases to get an idea.
- Xano: Xano gives you a scalable server, a flexible database, and a No-Code API builder for building a no-code backend for you app.
- Flutterflow: Flutterflow is a good choice for building iOS and Android apps. It provides integrations for Firebase, Supabase, Stripe etc. and also includes AI-powered code assistant
- WeWeb: a no-code front-end builder that you can use to build on-top of any back-end such as Xano.
See SaaS ideas for getting data-backed ideas for building micro saas, B2B SaaS ideas and ideas for building profitable digital products other than SaaS.
How to hire someone to build your SaaS MVP?
You can build the MVP of your SaaS in multiple ways besides coding it yourself. Options includes using no-code tools, buying an existing SaaS via marketplaces like Microns, TinyAcquisitions etc., or outsourcing the development work.
Outsourcing the development work is prudent if you have budget but don’t have enough time or lack the relevant technical skills. You can hire a freelancer from from marketplaces like Upwork etc., or can post a job in niche communities like IndieHackers, specific Reddit communities etc. It’s important to verify the relevant work experience and recommendations.
Before beginning, ensure you have a good understanding of your requirements, goals, and essential features. This clarity will enable effective communication with your developer. Decide on the tech stack - ideally, it should be one that is widely used to avoid future hiring and development challenges.
Lastly, establish a clear contract with well-defined milestones, deliverables, and terms. This clarity will facilitate a smooth, prompt development process.
If you're exploring rapid market entry, a white-label SaaS might be a good solution.
