This is how you should build your SaaS MVP
So here is the problem, I’ve seen a lot of my clients and people build the SaaS MVP wrong, A lot of time they often waste their efforts and money on the features that make no sense to include in MVP thus killing the actual USP of the SaaS.
In today’s article, I will share with you some important points you must consider while building an MVP of your product. This will help you ship your SaaS to the market and validate it faster.
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To understand things better I’ve divided them into points, let's check them one by one,
Jumping on MVP without checking the market 🏪
This is the most common mistake that I’ve seen among most people. So mostly we see in our company or work environment there is a problem that exists and we try to solve that with our SaaS idea which is not a problem.
The problem is most of the time the technology that would be used to develop the SaaS might be challenging or may require some R&D before building even an MVP. Or maybe the feature that you are building can require some external APIs that might bear some cost.
The solution here is for such a complex SaaS project you should focus first on building POC where you only focus on the backend side of the product just a simple CMD would be good to see the desired output you want to have.
If this works then you can API this output and build an MVP on it if not then you should not proceed. This will save you time and effort in MVP because we don’t want to develop all the frontend code, and authentication/authorization and then come to a point where we see the backend is not working properly.
But if you think your SaaS backend and the features you want to build are not complex and can easily be built out then you can skip the POC, but I would say consult with a tech advisor here who can guide you properly.
Not focusing on USP🧑💻
A lot of time we start to work on features like payments and subscriptions, admin panel, and user management which is often not needed in MVP you can manually make these things work.
Also for the frontend side, you don’t need to hire a UI/UX designer and build wireframes in Figma or Adobe XD you can simply purchase any templates from MUI and use them in your SaaS.
Often time we see our competitors with features and we try to incorporate them all in the MVP this could result in you getting burned out among your development team and also ends up burning your money and time.
You need to only focus on the core USP of your SaaS that solves the problem that others are not doing and build your SaaS foundation around it.
Time ⌚
Most of the time MVP of SaaS should be ready within 30–40 days if maximum you can extend it up to 50–60 days if there are bugs or you might be solving the business side of things. But if you take like 4 months to build an MVP that is a red 🔴falg for your SaaS development and most likely you won’t be able to succeed it.
Spending Money Unnecessary 💵
See to build a SaaS MVP your project doesn’t need to have a complex architecture setup on a big cloud like AWS, Azure, or GCP you can also use other platforms like Render, Heroku, or Vercel to host your application backend and frontend.
Or if you then also want to go with the cloud services you can apply for their startup programs which will give you enough credits to build and test your SaaS MVP among your focus group.
A lot of time we often don’t check the Scope of Work carefully with the development team, and later on, they charge you more to develop the features thus make sure to audit what you are signing for carefully before executing.
Undervaluing your SaaS price 🔻
This is another common mistake that I see, just because to get users and compete with your competitors we undervalue the rates of our SaaS. We should always value our product at a reasonable cost.
This leads to making no profits and even if you try to make your prices high that leads users to opt out of your SaaS.
Adding a Freemium Model Plan 🆓
This mistake is really bad for SaaS startups especially if you are funding your SaaS from your 9–5 job.
Offering something for Free is good but only when you have something coming out of it, like in your free plan you can add watermarks for your product which can be only removed once they purchase the pro plan.
Or if you want to offer a free plan you should only keep it for a limited period like 7 days for free and always ask for the card details which register a user. This will keep your MVP safe from toxic users who just want to user use your free SaaS features.
Well, these were some important points and mistakes that you need to take care of while building your first SaaS MVP. If you have any questions or doubts please feel free to reach out or comment down below.
I also wanted to share with you a book that I recently wrote on marketing if you want to take a deep dive into marketing and know how to get long-term paying customers for your SaaS, “Marketing Strategies to Grow Your SaaS” which will cover all the necessary steps and strategies in depth to help you take your SaaS from scratch and get some real paying users.
