Low code revolution in MVP development

Published in

Canonic.org

6 min readDec 22, 2021

A MVP or minimum viable product, is a product built with just enough features to test the solution within the market and collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least amount of effort.

Importance of MVP development?

Test the idea before committing a large budget to the product’s full development
Attract early-adopter customers
Minimise the time and resources investment before commitment
Release a product to the market as quickly as possible
Help the product team receive user feedback as quickly as possible
Iterate and improve the product based on the feedback
Learn what resonates with the company’s target market and what doesn’t

Challenges faced in MVP development?

Lack of a solid development team An MVP is a time- and cost-sensitive project. It’s also extremely important to the survival of your startup. You need to hire expert developers, but also UX/UI designers, testers, and business analysts, project managers. Otherwise, you risk going over your budget or missing deadlines.
Choosing the wrong tech stack Choosing the right stack of technologies from the very outset is a huge time saver, as it also ensures a solid basis for future improvements. Your product will be easier to maintain and scale, if it’s originally built on properly chosen technologies.
Limited iteration and brainstorming Lean Startup teaches us to focus on experimenting and learning from customers using the MVP. When our data refutes the hypotheses we have about our product, we pivot. Testing and tweaking a product needs to be done quickly.
Missing the prototyping stage By prototyping, you can refine your idea for an MVP and get early feedback from users. This will facilitate the overall development process and convince investors that your project is worth something. A prototype includes and the first sketches of the interface architecture, including the basic screen elements and their interactions.
Failing to identify the needs of your audience To get an overall idea of your users, you need to do research before, during, and even after the development process.
Choosing the wrong project management methodology In the world of software development, there are two most popular methodologies of project management: Waterfall and Agile. In the context of MVP, the difference between them boils down to how frequently you’re going to deliver your product to users.

What are low code platforms?

Low code is an approach to application development that leverages platform-based visual design elements — such as drop-down menus and checkboxes — to quickly and easily develop, change, and deliver business applications with minimal to no hand-coding.

This powerful capability is allowing organisations to circumvent lengthy development cycles and rigid legacy systems to rapidly stand up new business applications that meet immediate business needs.

Benefits of using low code platforms for MVP Development

Highest Speed
Low cost to launch
Easy to scale
Limited resources to fund operations.
Easier to Iterate and pivot
Less to loose
Limited code knowledge and skill required

Low code platforms for MVP Development — The new way way

Low code introduces a new alternative that allows you to maximize ROI from your existing tech stack. It offers the ability to squeeze even more value from existing solutions. With low-code applications, you create powerful data relationships from internal and external sources, centralize that information, and provide an ability for users to take action on it. You also leverage your existing technology solutions to bring data together and stand up new applications that put the right information in front of the right people at the right time.

By optimizing the user experience, you increase user adoption. And the more people use the solution, the more effective they are at their jobs, the more you maximize your ROI.

That’s why you need a platform, such as Canonic, with a well-documented record of enabling users to create diverse, customisable, and efficient low-code solutions. With robust low-code capabilities, contributors from outside your IT department not only play an important role in guiding applications to solve issues or improve processes, they also help design the products.

Difference between traditional ways to low code

Low code is an easier, quicker, and more inclusive approach to application development. Unlike the heavy coding requirements of traditional development, low code makes use of a drag and drop interface that requires very little coding to enable faster development and delivery.

While traditional development requires skilled teams and in-depth knowledge of technologies and frameworks, low-code is more inclusive. The ease of building apps with low code allows developers with varying levels of experience, as well as business users, to deliver apps within the required timeline. This decreases IT professional’s backlog and overall workload and lets them devote their time to more complex tasks. Moreover, since low code enables business users to actively get involved in the application development process, they can incorporate feedback from various stakeholders for more control over the specifications of the final product.

Low code can be instrumental in improving the overall growth of your business. The cost and time-saving benefits of low code are so prominent that reports suggest almost 70% of the organizations believed low-code to be more affordable than traditional development. Low-code can also save your business $50-$100K of your application development cost! With respect to products speed-to-market, low-code cuts down the traditional development process taking more than 6 months for delivery, to only a couple of months long.

Low code improves productivity, efficiency, and overall morale within an organisation by equipping IT and business users with the right tools for application development.

When to Use Low Code?

A) For Business Use Cases that Drive Agile Transformation

In most enterprises, business users from departments such as HR, Marketing, Operations, etc. want to implement ideas to improve the functioning of their department. The speed-to-market for these internal transformations needs to be high, to optimise its effectiveness.

In such cases, low code can be a driver of agile transformation and change management in your business. It allows changes to be made quickly, and if these changes do not work, they can be rolled back just as easily.

B) Quick Application Development by Business Users:

Business users are often the ones to introduce innovation within a company but are held back due to the requirement of hardcore coding abilities that only IT professionals possess.

Low code platforms allow business users with little to no coding abilities to design apps as per their requirements. The simple user interface and easy to understand design process enables them to build applications with minimal dependencies on the IT department. This results in faster development and deployment of the app and lower instances of missed opportunities.

C) For Unique and Customisable Solutions:

Certain business problems are unique to a particular department and organisation and require customisable solutions. Long development times, longer feedback loops, and the appropriation of skilled resources for an internal project is not a desirable scenario for most organisations.

With low code, your business users can easily build and rebuild apps as per their evolving requirements. The scale of the application can also be expanded to reflect the growing needs of the department, ensuring cost optimisation.

When to stick with Traditional Development?

A) For Open-Ended Solutions:

Some business problems require open-ended thinking. Since these problems have an unstructured process of resolution, it can be difficult to build an app without a predetermined structure.

Low code best works for solutions that follow a defined structure and are required to be designed accordingly. Hence, cases which are more open-ended and unstructured cannot make use of low code platforms to construct a solution.

In such scenarios, it is better to use software that encourages the collaboration of ideas and fosters discussions.

B) For Applications Requiring High Level of Specialised Interactivity

Some applications require a high level of specialised interactivity. Though low code platforms can create highly efficient applications, they do not provide the flexibility and freedom that traditional development provides when building apps. This is because traditional development platforms provide an infinite number of functionalities.

For such applications, it’s best to use traditional development and design the app as per the exclusive specifications. Here, low code can be used to offload the other applications in your IT team’s backlog, allowing them to focus their efforts on these complex solutions requiring actual code.